Media clips
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Without access to child-care services on campus, student parents, a majority of whom are raising children by themselves, are forced to find alternative options that can be pricey. In 33 states and the District of Columbia, infant-care costs exceed the average cost of in-state college tuition at public four-year colleges, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Washington Post September 8, 2016 -
On Wednesday, Rosenfeld discussed the changing labor movement and a new study from the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute, which he contributed to. He also discussed what led to the downfall of union membership in the United States. On the surface he said, automation and globalization are partly to blame. Yet, peer nations overseas face the same issues and their labor movements remained comparatively strong.
St. Louis Public Radio September 8, 2016 -
Nearly half of Americans have no retirement savings at all, reports the Economic Policy Institute. And while the average retirement savings for American families is $95,776, the large number of families with no savings at all means the median family has just $5,000 saved. The reasons are largely twofold: Many families don’t earn enough to cover basic expenses, and so live paycheck to paycheck, and many workers don’t have easy access to retirement savings accounts. In fact, about half the private sector workforce — approximately 55 million Americans — lack access to a retirement plan through their employers, says the AARP.
The Week September 6, 2016 -
It’s also a brute fact that workers’ wages have declined or stagnated because the bargaining power of employees has been drastically undercut. A just-released study by the Economic Policy Institute showed that the weekly wages of non-union men without college degrees employed in the private sector would have been 8 percent higher in 2013 if union density had remained at 1979 levels.
The Washington Post September 6, 2016 -
None of this mollifies activists who want the ratio to return to more historical norms. They point out that average CEO pay last year was $15.5 million, 276 times more than what an average nonsupervisory worker would make in the private sector. True, that’s not as high as during the dot-com bubble of 2000, when CEO pay soared to 376 times the average worker’s income. But it’s nearly 10 times the 30-to-1 ratio that existed in 1978, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a liberal Washington think tank. And because so much of CEO pay is tied to the price of the company stock, the ratio could rise again if the stock market soars again. CEO pay “is high and I think it’s going to grow,” says Lawrence Mishel, president of EPI. “We’re on track to reestablish a new high.”
The Christian Science Monitor September 5, 2016 -
The chart shows these costs, as calculated by the Economic Policy Institute, for two family types in nine metropolitan areas, a single worker and a single worker with one dependent child. These calculations indicate that a wage of about $13.45 is necessary for a single worker in Colorado Springs, but $15.67 is required in Chicago and $21.07 in Washington, D.C. With a dependent child, the basic-needs wages in these cities jump to $24.90, $26.40, and $39.35, respectively. In short, a $15 wage would not come close to covering a basic-needs budget for a family with a single dependent child anywhere in the United States… The closest thing we have to a reliable estimate of the net effects of a $15 wage is a recent comprehensive study on the New York state proposal done by the UC Berkeley Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. Like the results calculated by EPI’s David Cooper, this study estimates that raising New York’s wage floor from $9 to $15 will increase earnings for about 3.2 million workers and increase average pay for those getting raises by 23 percent (about $5,000 a year). While the study’s model suggests there may be as many as 78,000 lost jobs, these are expected to be more than offset by the (more certain) gains from increased consumer demand, leading to a slight positive net effect (3,000 jobs)… There is another benefit. Means-tested social spending is increasingly tied to work, through the Earned Income Tax Credit, food stamps, and other programs. Much of America’s public assistance goes to working families with very low incomes, effectively subsidizing low-wage employers. According to the Berkeley Labor Center, about $13.1 billion is spent on public assistance for working families in New York state; EPI’s David Cooper estimates this figure to be about $8.7 billion.
American Prospect September 5, 2016 -
Those are all legitimate reasons, but a new paper by Jake Rosenfeld, Patrick Denice and Jennifer Laird, published by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), argues that there’s another big factor in play: negative spillovers to non-union workers from the loss of union jobs. The paper’s logic is compelling and its evidence rigorous. I won’t vouch for the exact numbers, as many moving parts are in play, some of which are hard to control for in this sort of study. But I’m sure they’re in the ballpark… What could precipitate a positive shock that could lastingly reverse the negative trend in union density? Silvers and other to whom I posed this question had the same answer: centralized bargaining. Especially given the depth of opposition and the existence of the “gig economy” (where the “workplace” hardly exists), organizing one establishment at a time is a recipe for further stagnation. As EPI’s president, Larry Mishel, put it, “We need a design where people have collective bargaining rights as restaurant workers, as opposed to one where they gain those rights one restaurant at a time.”
The Washington Post September 5, 2016 -
That’s hurt everyone’s wages, not just unionized workers. The wage-boosting power of unions usually spills out into other workplaces because they set standards that everyone ends up adopting. A new report from the Economic Policy Institute found that for men working in the private sector who aren’t in a union, their weekly wages would be about 5 percent higher if union membership had stayed at the same rate as it was in 1979. That would mean an extra $2,704 per year on average. Non-union women would also benefit, but the impact would be smaller — a 2 to 3 percent increase in wages — because women have historically been a much smaller share of union workers.
Think Progress September 5, 2016 -
This is very bad news for those hoping that ordinary workers would share in the country’s prosperity. In addition to raising the wages of their members, there is a large spillover effect on the wages of other workers, as documented in a recent paper from the Economic Policy Institute. This paper estimated that the wages of non-union workers would be 5.0 percent higher today if unionization rates had not declined from their level of four decades ago.
The Huffington Post September 5, 2016 -
Also last week, the Economic Policy Institute issued a report titled “Union Decline Lowers Wages of Nonunion Workers.” It explained that the ability of union workers to boost nonunion workers’ pay weakened as the percentage of private-sector workers in unions fell from about 33 percent in the 1950s to about 5 percent today. The EPI researchers found that nonunion private sector men with a high school diploma or less education would receive weekly wages approximately 9 percent higher if union density had remained at 1979 levels. That’s an extra $3,172 a year.
The Huffington Post September 5, 2016