AFTER nearly eight years of President Barack Obama’s economic policies, the national economy and wage growth remain sluggish. The liberal Economic Policy Institute offers an interesting theory to explain away those lackluster results: Government hasn’t taxed and spent enough in the Obama era.
The Oklahoman
August 17, 2016
Others may not be so fortunate and could find themselves stressed out by whether they’ll have enough money to get through retirement. “It is possible that American seniors enjoy working more than their counterparts in Europe and Canada,” said a study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). But it’s equally possible that they’re working because they have to. The U.S. has a “high senior poverty rate,” and the pensions that workers once had are being replaced by “inadequate 401k’s,” said the EPI. And even many of those vanished somewhat during the last recession. That may be why 30 percent of this country’s 65- to 69-year-olds are still at the daily grind, compared with only 20 percent in other developed nations. For those who still need to work, the fact that pensions have all but disappeared — with the exception of public employees — has one good effect when an older person is seeking a job. “The shift away from defined benefit pensions has eliminated one barrier to hiring older workers, because employers no longer face the burden of backloaded benefit(s),” said the study.
CBS Moneywatch
August 17, 2016
Larry Mishel, president of left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute, where Boushey once worked, called her “whip smart and practical.” “Her passion these days is about helping individuals balance work and family,” Mishel told MarketWatch. “And that is really an important part of the Clinton agenda.”
MarketWatch
August 17, 2016
This past week, the Wall Street Journal detailed that our current pace of economic expansion in America is at its weakest since 1949. According to the Economic Policy Institute, only those at the top of the wage distribution scale have real wages higher today than before the recession began.
The Hill
August 17, 2016
Trump’s most notable deviation from his party’s corporatist agenda is his opposition to trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But as Economic Policy Institute president Larry Mishel has argued, Trump’s posture “is a scam.” While Trump complains that the United States doesn’t “win on trade,” making vague promises to negotiate “better” deals, he also has a long history of manufacturing Trump-branded merchandise abroad. There is simply nothing in Trump’s record or policies to indicate that he is actually concerned about the workers affected by the trade policies he laments. “Donald Trump fashions himself a populist, but his economic plan just recycles the failed policies of deregulation and massive tax cuts for the rich and corporations,” Mishel wrote in response to Trump’s speech. “If such policies were effective, we would remember George W. Bush’s presidency as one of great prosperity instead of a period of stagnant wages for blue- and white-collar workers.”
The Washington Post
August 16, 2016
Teachers earned 17 percent less than other college graduates in 2015, according to a new research report from The Economic Policy Institute. That’s the largest gap since 1979, when teachers’ weekly wages were 5.5 percent less than those of college graduates. The analysis adjusted for education, age, gender, marital status, geographic region and race/ethnicity. When benefits including insurance and pensions were factored in, the gap was still 11.1 percent
The Fiscal Times
August 16, 2016
A new report released by the Economic Policy Institute has found that the gap between what teachers are paid in comparison with other careers is the largest it has ever been. Written by Sylvia Allegretto and Lawrence Mishel, the report found the wages paid to public school teachers across the nation to be 17% lower than those paid to comparable workers in 2015. Meanwhile, the difference in wages was just 1.8% lower in 1994. The authors go on to suggest that this gap is higher for experienced teachers than it is for those just entering the field.
Education News
August 16, 2016
According to a 2015 study by the Economic Policy Institute, Wisconsin‘s black unemployment rate was nearly 20 percent in 2014.
The Associated Press
August 16, 2016
In-home workers are disproportionately black, Hispanic and immigrant, and more than 90 percent are women, according to a 2012 study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Nearly a quarter live below the poverty line and just 12 percent receive health insurance from their employer.
The Chicago Tribune
August 16, 2016
According to a report published earlier this summer by Lawrence Mishel and Jessica Schieder of the Economic Policy Institute, CEOs of the 350 largest companies in the US by sales earn an average of about 276 times what the average worker at their company makes. The EPI researchers noted that this was down from 302 times the average worker’s pay in 2014, largely because CEOs tend to receive a large amount of their compensation in the form of stock and options; 2015 saw a pretty flat stock market.
Business Insider
August 16, 2016