Well, as the Economic Policy Institute reported recently, this kind of talk is premature. According to their analysis, we’re still far from a full-employment situation. Some regions of the country are faring considerably better than others. And where the employment numbers are weak, a lot of what you’re seeing is what’s known as “structural unemployment” – not enough workers in the area with the skills to fill jobs in a workplace driven more and more by emerging technology.
The Plain Dealer
August 4, 2016
The State Priorities Partnership, which was built by the center-left Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, coordinates a network of 42 state policy organizations focused on issues affecting low-income Americans. Simultaneously, the Economic Analysis and Research Network, operated through the Economic Policy Institute, is a collaboration of some 61 state policy institutes that do research and advocacy on labor policy and issues affecting working-class Americans.
VOX
August 4, 2016
Child care in Idaho costs more than a year of in-state tuition at a public college, according to the Economic Policy Institute… “According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), child care is affordable if it costs no more than 10 percent of a family’s income,” the Economic Policy Institute said in a report on child care costs. “By this standard, only 37.5 percent of Idaho families can afford infant care.”
Idaho Statesman
August 4, 2016
Elise Gould, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute, says that while in general the path toward equal pay involves transparency between employer and employee, the new Massachusetts provisions are counterintuitive. “It essentially acknowledges that employers hold information about wages within their firm they don’t have to share, and says that a worker should be able to withhold personal information about their earning history,” said Gould. “If there is a history of racial or gender discrimination, it would be perpetuated by requiring an applicant to disclose their salary information.”
The Guardian
August 3, 2016
The United States has lost more than 5 million manufacturing jobs in the past 15 years as the trade deficit has mushroomed, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank in Washington. Wage growth in almost all sectors has flatlined over that time, including for the bottom 70 percent of fouryear college graduates–and growth overall has been anemic, at under 2 percent. And while the 9 million jobs vaporized in the flash of the Great Recession have been recovered, the majority of them are of lesser quality than the ones they replaced.
Reuters
August 3, 2016
A $12 floor, up from the current $7.25, would mean 336,000 Iowa workers — 22% of the state’s total — would get a raise. In Ohio, it’s 21%. In Pennsylvania, it’s 20%, according to Economic Policy Institute data. More workers who make a little more than $12 now would also get a bump to keep them ahead of lower-ranking colleagues, EPI says. These are more than enough workers to tilt close elections.
MarketWatch
August 3, 2016
The median inflation-adjusted hourly wage grew only 5.7% from 1973-2015, according to astonishing data compiled by the Economic Policy Institute. That comes to 0.1% a year. Worse yet, wage gains have been even more meager for workers below the median. If you want to understand why the typical American worker is angry, start here.
Wall Street Journal
August 2, 2016
The plan attempts to solve a very real conundrum: how to increase the labor share of national income, which has been dropping consistently for the past 15 years. This translates into a loss of $535 billion for workers since 2000, according to the Economic Policy Institute. And it obviously exacerbates income inequality, as the share of income increasingly flows to managers and financiers at the very top.
The Fiscal Times
August 2, 2016
“The effects of trade have been felt most severely in manufacturing, and frankly, there haven’t been many young workers hired or fired in manufacturing in the last 10 or 15 years,” said Robert E. Scott, a senior economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “So in one sense, they’ve been protected, but in another, they’ve suffered, because they haven’t had these manufacturing jobs available to them.”
Mic
August 2, 2016
The Trump campaign cites studies by the liberal Economic Policy Institute, a go-to institution for labor unions, which also opposes Nafta and China trade. The EPI found that expanded trade with Mexico cost 683,000 U.S. jobs by 2010. The think tank came up with that number by looking at how much the trade deficit with Mexico had deepened during that time and figuring how many jobs those lost exports and increased imports produced. The author’s study, Robert Scott, says EPI’s work is very detailed and takes into account the output of different types of factories.
Wall Street Journal
August 2, 2016