Supporters of the policy are optimistic it could help people escape from poverty. The increase might also spur economic growth as workers are able to afford basic needs. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a progressive nonprofit, found a federal increase would lift wages for 41 million workers without many consequences. “The federal minimum wage was established in 1938 to help ensure that all work would be fairly rewarded and provide a decent quality of life,” EPI said in a statement when the bill was being introduced. “The current minimum wage falls far short of this goal. Thanks to congressional inaction, the purchasing power of the minimum wage has been eroded by inflation.”
Inside Sources
May 26, 2017
Marketplace
May 26, 2017
“You have to look at what’s being bellowed at the top of the administration’s lungs—‘We’re supporting workers’—versus what’s happening behind closed doors,” says Heidi Shierholz, who leads the Perkins Project on Worker Rights and Wages at the Economic Policy Institute and served as chief economist at the Labor Department during the Obama administration. Shierholz and her colleagues have tracked moves by the Trump administration—and its GOP allies in Congress—that would, among other things, make it easier for companies to hide their safety problems and other workplace violations, as well as hurt workers saving for their retirement.
Fortune
May 26, 2017
EPI: Automation is not tied to job loss or inequality (Paywall, whole story below)
Politico Pro/Marianne LeVine
Automation does not lead to job loss or contribute to economic inequality, according to an analysis from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. The analysis found that automation decreased from 1973 to 1995 and 2002 to the present- two periods when wage growth was stagnant and economic inequality increased. In addition, automation increased between the late 1940’s and the mid 1970’s — a time when wages grew for workers of all economic classes. “The fact that robots have displaced some jobs in particular industries and occupations does not mean that automation has or will lead to increased overall joblessness,” the analysis said. In addition, the analysis criticized media coverage of a recent study that concluded “robots may reduce employment and wages.” But the EPI analysis noted that while robots are negatively correlated with employment, the study found that other automation indicators are “positively correlated or neutral with regard to employment.”
Politico
May 25, 2017
Study: China Trade, Not Automation, Destroying U.S. Jobs
LifeZette/Brendan Kirby
Despite concerns that the robots are coming for our jobs, automation is responsible for only a fourth as many jobs lost as trade with China since the turn of the century, according to a report released Wednesday. The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute analyzed recent research by economists Daron Acemoglu, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Pascual Restrepo, of Boston University, and concluded that automation is a sideshow compared to the bigger causes of job loss and wage stagnation. “Studies that attempt to estimate the number of jobs that will be potentially lost to automation in the future never seem to take into account automation’s positive effects on employment,” study co-author Josh Bivens said in a prepared statement. “The invention of the automobile eliminated jobs in the horse-drawn carriage industry, but it led to new jobs in the repair and sales of autos, as well as the construction of highways. There is no evidence that future automation will somehow be different.”
Lifezette
May 25, 2017
How do antipoverty programs affect the labor force participation rate? Fewer adult Americans are working today than in previous years, which the budget implies may be tied to government handouts. Economists have puzzled over the decline in the participation rate, with some pointing to a shift in the quality of jobs as a reason fewer workers are clocking in. The decline is particularly evident for men without college degrees, who are suffering from lower wages and fewer opportunities for advancement, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some of those men are signing up for disability benefits, although no evidence has shown that applying for disability causes workers to permanently leave the labor force, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
CBS Moneywatch
May 25, 2017
LTE: Dissecting White Flight
The New York Times/Richard Rothstein
The New York Times
May 25, 2017
NAFTA accelerated the race to the bottom — and as a result, labor on both sides of the Mexican-American border lost, while corporations reaped the benefits. In the United States, NAFTA displaced 850,000 American manufacturing jobs according to the Economic Policy Institute — and it has suppressed wages by throwing U.S. workers into unmitigated wage competition with low-income Mexican laborers
The Hill
May 25, 2017
Economists See Little Magic in Tax Cuts to Promote Growth
The New York Times/Patricia Cohen and Nelson Schwartz
The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute estimated that the budget cuts would decrease growth by more than 1 percent by 2020.
The New York Times
May 24, 2017
Here’s where the White House got its insane growth projections
Think Progress/Ned Resnikoff
“These programs do not have a big effect on labor supply, so by cutting them you cause a lot of pain for very little movement toward getting people into the labor market,” said Economic Policy Institute chief economist Heidi Shierholz in an email. Low-income people also can’t be pushed into obtaining work if there’s no work to be found. While it’s true that firms across the United States have complained of a shortage in applicants, that doesn’t mean people outside the labor pool can be easily slotted into those jobs. One reason why so many states have waived work requirements on food stamps is a lack of available jobs — and even job training programs — for beneficiaries.
Think Progress
May 24, 2017