Pay for teachers has stagnated nationally over the past two decades, and fallen behind earnings of other workers with college degrees, the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based nonpartisan think tank, concluded in a report released Tuesday. In 1994, teachers earned on average 1.8 percent less than other comparable workers; by 2015, they earned 17 percent less, adjusted for inflation. Factoring in total compensation, including health benefits and pensions, teachers earned the same as other workers with college degrees in 1994 but 11 percent less by 2015, the report found.
EdSource
August 10, 2016
TEACHER PAY GAP: Next to comparable workers in other industries, public-sector teachers are faced with a widening wage gap, even when benefits are accounted for. That’s according to a report [http://bit.ly/2aPT6aS] released today by the Economic Policy Institute that says teachers make 17 percent less than comparable workers in other industries, according to 2015 wage data. The report used a “wage model” in making the comparison, which controls for variables such as education, gender, marital status, age, and race/ethnicity.
Politico
August 10, 2016
The Economic Policy Institute report released Tuesday sounds an alarm for future staffing of schools, noting, “The supply of teachers is diminishing at every stage of the career ladder. On the front end, fewer students are entering the profession…Over the long run, employment opportunities for women have greatly expanded, and thus the teaching profession can no longer rely on what was a somewhat captive labor pool. At the same time, teachers are less satisfied and more stressed as standardized testing has been elevated as a tool for student, school, and teacher evaluations.”
The Atlanta Journal Constitution
August 10, 2016
The Daily Beast ran an interesting story this week about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his predilection for the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), an economic think tank and policy shop in Washington, DC. “[Trump] cites them a lot,” writes the Beast’s Betsy Woodruff. “A perusal of his emailed press statements from the last two months shows he name-checked the group more than a dozen times.” The rub here is that EPI is no one’s idea of a Republican-friendly think tank – it’s a go-to source for progressive policy research, and it advocates for many things conservatives hate: increased government spending, a higher minimum wage, and a more progressive tax code. For a Republican presidential nominee to cite them so enthusiastically is… odd.
Salon
August 10, 2016
An analysis by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute in Washington projected that the legislation would increase wages for 98,000 employees, or 27 percent of Baltimore workers. That projection was based on an earlier version of the bill that eventually guaranteed full minimum wage to bartenders, waiters and others who work for tips.
Carroll County Times
August 10, 2016
But tax deductions are worth a lot more to people who make a lot of money ― and worth absolutely nothing to people whose incomes are so low that they owe no federal income taxes at all. Naturally, these are the people who need help the most: A 2015 study by the Economic Policy Institute found that child care would soak up more than 10 percent of median income in a sample of communities across the country ― and would positively overwhelm families making minimum wage.
The Huffington Post
August 10, 2016
Real average hourly wages of often debt-laden college graduates fell between 2000 and 2014, according to the Economic Policy Institute, while the Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index jumped more than 25 percent, adjusted for inflation, over the same period.
Reuters (via NY Times)
August 10, 2016
The Economic Policy Institute, or EPI, and its researchers are Organized Labor’s favorite wonks and no friend of the right. Mainstream, corporate-friendly conservatives regularly butt heads with them over questions about collective bargaining and free trade. In fact, they proudly consider themselves the premiere policy shop for progressive economics. And they are not happy to be a part of Trump’s rhetorical arsenal
The Daily Beast
August 9, 2016
In his speech, Trump cited research by Robert E. Scott, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington. Scott rejected the forecasts in the commission’s report on the deal, saying he doubted U.S. automakers would gain meaningful access to markets in Japan. Scott — like many people in the automotive industry — is particularly frustrated that the deal does not contain enforceable restrictions on currency manipulation. By reducing the price of the yen, he said, the Japanese government can effectively increase the price of foreign cars, as he and other experts have accused Tokyo of doing in the past. “They maintain a currency that’s designed to keep Japanese goods — cars — competitive, but they also are one of the most closed markets in the world,” Scott said.
The Washington Post
August 9, 2016
But Trump’s speech didn’t contain only the normal Republican calls to lower taxes and cut government oversight of business. He also called for an end to the carried-interest loophole, which allows hedge-funders and others to pay a much lower tax rate on earnings, marking a rare policy agreement with Hillary Clinton. And as Trump launched an usual attack against free trade policies, he cited the liberal Economic Policy Institute to explain potential harms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trump also proposed a tax deduction for families to offset the cost of child care—but since that benefit is a deduction rather than a credit, its benefits would skew toward the upper middle class rather than working-class families.
Mother Jones
August 9, 2016