According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a Washington-based liberal think tank, nominal wage rises of 3.5-4 percent per year will be needed before workers begin to recover losses from the last severe recession.
Elise Gould, an economist at the EPI, said state-government mandated minimum wage hikes, rather than a scarcity of workers in retail, leisure and hospitality probably contributed to the improved fortunes of the bottom 10 percent. “I would be surprised if those were the sectors where we saw the tightness first,” she said.
Reuters
April 3, 2015
Perhaps because of the effect on prices, the mortgage-interest deduction doesn’t even seem to encourage homeownership. Thomas L. Hungerford, an economist with the liberal Economic Policy Institute, notes that Canada and the United Kingdom have homeownership rates similar to that of the U.S., even though they don’t let borrowers write off the interest on their mortgages. “Having the mortgage-interest deduction does almost nothing for increasing homeownership rates,” Hungerford said.
FiveThirtyEight
April 3, 2015
This report was produced by the Economic Policy Institute as part of the Full Employment Project of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The American Prospect
April 3, 2015
International Franchise Association CEO Steve Caldera and Economic Policy Institute Senior Economist Elise Gould weigh in on the income inequality and minimum wage debate. They speak on “In The Loop.”
Bloomberg TV
April 2, 2015
The raise, however, only applies to employees of the actual restaurant. The 750,000 workers employed by franchises, which make up 90 percent of McDonald’s restaurants, are not included in this wage hike. “The fact that a $1.00 raise for 90,000 workers is headline news is evidence of how low the bar has been set,” the Economic Policy Institute noted in a statement. “All workers should receive regular wage increases as productivity rises, and yet despite rising productivity, Americans’ wages have been stagnant for three-and-a-half decades.”
Mother Jones
April 2, 2015
Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, said the fact a $1 raise for 90,000 workers is headline news is evidence of how low the bar has been set. “All workers should receive regular wage increases as productivity rises, and yet despite rising productivity, Americans’ wages have been stagnant for three-and-a-half decades.”
The Hill
April 2, 2015
The Washington Post
April 1, 2015
Webb graduated from the Naval Academy in 1968. Research from the left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute shows that the chief executive-to-worker compensation ratio in 1965 was 20-to-1.
The Washington Post
April 1, 2015
The skill and education of immigrants with H-1Bs do not insulate them from criticism. Ross Eisenbrey, a lawyer at the left-wing Economic Policy Institute, complained that such skilled immigrants supposedly hurt Americans. He claimed that skilled migrants cause a “genius glut” that pushes down the job opportunities for Americans. Eisenbrey does get one thing right in his polemic against skilled immigrants: There is no shortage of skilled workers. But that doesn’t mean America can’t use them.
The Hill
April 1, 2015
Ross Eisenbrey warns that communities would get what they pay for. He’s vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank. “The union labor that often is the higher cost labor is much better quality. The people who do the work are journeymen who’ve been through apprenticeship programs, and they’re just more skilled and more productive and more efficient. So at the end of the day, what is saved in an hourly rate calculation is lost. It takes more hours for the less skilled person to do the work,” Eisenbrey says.
Eisenbrey adds that lower wages don’t mean taxpayers would see savings. He says it’s not unfathomable to think that a company might just collect a bigger profit.
Milwaukee Public Radio
April 1, 2015