Media clips
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This week we are discussing the past and future of jobs and paychecks with Dr. Lawrence “Larry” Mishel. Larry has been a labor market economist for 30 years and is now the President of The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank. EPI is focusing on how our current economy is affecting low- and middle-income Americans, what policies are needed to restore the middle class and how to generate robust wage growth for everyone so they experience a growing standard of living. With a PhD in economics, Larry is increasingly concerned with trends regarding wage stagnation – he believes the preeminent economic challenge of our time is to overcome wage stagnation. The wages and benefits of nearly all workers haven’t grown in 12 years! This affects all workers, even those that are highly skilled. The hourly wages and benefits of the median worker have only grown around 9% since 1979!
Future of Work Podcast March 15, 2016 -
Boone County in West Virginia is at the epicenter of the job losses in coal. It’s lost about 4,500 coal jobs since 2009, according to Kris Mitchell, director of development for Boone County. Statewide, West Virginia has lost about 10,000 mining jobs over that time, Labor Department data shows. West Virginia had the highest unemployment rate in the country of 6.7% in the last quarter of 2015, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Mitchell estimates Boone County’s unemployment rate is closer to 10%.
CNN Money March 15, 2016 -
If you think this kind of banner proposal is something Democrats and liberals should emulate, you’d be right. In fact, they may already have one on hand: The budget from the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), a.k.a. “the people’s budget.” They’ve been proposing it every year since at least 2012, but a recent analysis of its latest iteration by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows what a rallying cry it could be. The budget’s ultimate goal is “to push unemployment to 4 percent,” Hunter Blair, a budget analyst at EPI, explained to The Week. It accomplishes this by fighting back hard against the kind of austerity Ryan champions.
The Week March 15, 2016 -
Calculating exact job deficits (or gains) from trade deals is an inexact science at best. Mr. Sanders cites the job losses from Nafta and the trade status with China to the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank affiliated with the labor movement. The Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan arm of Congress that analyzes policy, found that Nafta did not cause the huge job losses critics have stated, as PolitiFact noted.
The New York Times March 14, 2016 -
Robert E. Scott, a senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, estimates that NAFTA is responsible for the net loss of roughly 700,000 American jobs to Mexico, while China’s admittance to the W.T.O. cost the United States more than three million jobs. Roughly three-quarters of those losses were in the more heavily unionized manufacturing sector, contributing to the steep decline in private sector union membership, which went from 15.7 percent in 1993 to a nadir of 6.6 percent in 2014, the lowest figure in a century. Mr. Scott’s research has shown that these agreements not only drive down manufacturing wages, but they also have a ripple effect, pushing down the pay in other jobs typically held by workers without a college education: home health care worker, truck driver, waitress. A 2013 paper by Mr. Scott’s colleague at E.P.I., Josh Bivens, found that, on average, noncollege-educated American workers, the people who make up roughly 70 percent of the labor force, lose nearly $2,000 a year in wages owing to the growth of trade with low-wage countries promoted by free-trade agreements.
The New York Times March 14, 2016 -
A CNN/ORC poll last week showed that jobs and the economy were the top concerns of 42 percent of the likely voters in each primary here. In 2015, Ohio lost 115,000 jobs due to free-trade deals such as NAFTA and normalized trading relations with China, according to a study released this month by the Economic Policy Institute, a labor-backed think tank.
Philadelphia Inquirer March 14, 2016 -
It can be costly for employers who get caught. The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute said government and private attorneys recovered nearly $1 billion dollars on behalf of wage theft victims in 2012.
Minnesota Public Radio March 14, 2016 -
If you ask whether big trade agreements kill more jobs than they create, you get different answers. Take the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). “My estimate is that it eliminated almost 700,000 jobs in the United States, that is a net estimate,” said Robert E. Scott of the Economic Policy Institute. He attributes the loss to rising trade deficits with Mexico.
Marketplace March 14, 2016 -
By 2000, black unemployment had fallen to 7.6 percent, the lowest rate in recorded history, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis. The median wage for blacks rose even faster than for whites, propelling a higher percentage of African-Americans into the middle class than in any economic recovery since 1982.
Josh Bivens, research and policy director of the Economic Policy Institute, said he would “love” for Clinton to speak out about prioritizing filling the two vacant seats on the Fed Board of Governors.
“She could even talk about it in terms of the late 1990s,” Bivens said. “There are reasons to feel warmly about that period and a big part of that is the Fed did not take away the punch bowl too early.”
The Huffington Post March 14, 2016 -
Men in the top 5% of income distribution saw their wages grow 15% between 2007 and 2015. But men in the bottom 70% have had no wage gains over the last 8 years, according to a new report by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. “It’s no surprise that typical workers are frustrated with the economy since wage growth has been slow for so long,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at EPI and author of the report.
CNN Money March 14, 2016