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
AHCA could stifle Ohio’s healthcare industry, cutting jobs and services
The Plain Dealer/Ginger Christ
If the American Health Care Act, AHCA, were enacted in its present form, Ohio would have 81,000 fewer healthcare jobs in the next five years than if it stayed the course with the ACA, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit national think tank focused on low- and middle-income workers.
The Plain Dealer
May 24, 2017
“In the 10 most populous states in the country, each year 2.4 million workers covered by state or federal minimum wage laws report being paid less than the applicable minimum wage in their state -approximately 17 percent of the eligible low-wage workforce,” the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found. “The majority of workers with reported wages below the minimum wage are over 25 and are native-born U.S. citizens, nearly half are white, more than a quarter have children, and just over half work full time.”
Houston Chronicle
May 24, 2017
Wage theft sounds like something that sleazy men in back rooms perpetrate to further oppress their employees. While that does happen, a lot of wage theft is unintentional. A new study from the Economics Policy Institute (EPI) says that employers short their employees by $15 billion a year, which means that millions of people are paid less than minimum wage for their work. This is, of course, illegal, and everyone reading this article knows this, so why on earth would your company be in violation? Well, wage theft isn’t always the case of a corrupt boss attempting to take advantage of employees. And paying below minimum wage isn’t the only form of wage theft.
Inc.
May 23, 2017
Hundreds of thousands of people in Illinois live in poverty, and new research suggests that number would be lower if some workers weren’t being cheated out of pay they have earned. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) examined reports of minimum wage theft in the 10 most populous states, including Illinois. Among those states, the report found each year 2.4 million workers are being paid less than minimum wage, amounting to more than $8 billion in lost wages annually. (whole story)
Illinois News Service
May 23, 2017
The share of Americans in the workforce is also shrinking – particularly among those with lower levels of education, said Valerie Wilson, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “The workers we would expect to have the strongest labour attachments have actually been becoming less attached,” she said. Among survey respondents who did not attend college, nearly 40% said it was too expensive or that they needed to earn money. Their status was also closely tied to whether their parents had attended college.
BBC News
May 23, 2017
Young men falling to the bottom of the income ladder
The Boston Globe/Katie Johnson
“This has an effect on their entire lives,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, who recently coauthored a report on new high school and college graduates. “Those first jobs are going to set you up for your lifetime of earnings.” … “This has an effect on their entire lives,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, who recently coauthored a report on new high school and college graduates. “Those first jobs are going to set you up for your lifetime of earnings.”
The Boston Globe
May 22, 2017