Such findings will not exactly come as a shock to those who have watched top execs’ pay shoot into the stratosphere over the last 30 years — often with little to show for investors. CEO comp since 1978 has soared 941 percent, while the S&P 500 over that time is up 543 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
CBS Moneywatch
July 26, 2016
“Employers look on someone who had a paid internship as having a job,” said Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute. In other words, they take the candidate more seriously. But for a lot of interns, particularly in creative industries, the unpaid internship is a rite of passage. “I mean, I’ve known Ivy League graduates who worked packing boxes,” Eisenbrey said. But he added plenty of unpaid internships are worth doing for the experience.
Marketplace
July 26, 2016
It’s been seven years since the federal minimum wage went up to $7.25, but in that time minimum wage earners have lost 10 percent of buying power to inflation, the Economic Policy Institute noted today. In fact, the EPI calculated that minimum wage peaked way back in 1968, when Americans earned $9.68 per hour in today’s dollars. Before then, minimum wage was set to correspond with productivity — how much income the average worker produces. If federal minimum wage had kept that pace, it’d sit at just under $19 now. If the minimum followed average wage growth — which, as we know, hasn’t been stellar — it’d be around $11.35
Marketplace
July 26, 2016
FiveThirtyEight noted that it’s not clear how big of a concern this decline is, or if it really represents the “death of the middle class.” For example, one reason the middle class is shrinking is that more people are getting richer, while others are getting poorer. Moreover, FiveThirtyEight added, the “typical American household has changed dramatically over the past three decades” — for example, the aging population earns less in retirement. The Sanders campaign previously has pointed to the Economic Policy Institute’s data that American workers’ wages have not kept up with inflation since 1968.
The Washington Post
July 26, 2016
According to the Economic Policy Institute, in 33 states and the District of Columbia, infant care costs exceed the average cost of in-state college tuition at public four-year institutions. In New York, for example, where the full-time minimum wage salary is $18,720 a year, the average annual cost of infant care is $14,144. This means that a minimum-wage worker in New York would need to work full time for thirty-nine weeks, or from January to September, just to pay for child care for one infant.
CBS News
July 23, 2016
“My point of view is that these trade deals have been bad especially for workers in the US,” Robert Scott, senior economist at the labor-affiliated Economic Policy Institute, says in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor. “This particular deal looks worse than NAFTA,” the trade deal signed by Bill Clinton that created a trade bloc between the US, Canada, and Mexico. “They encourage the globalization of the economy, which increases exports of capital-intensive goods and increases imports of labor-intensive goods,” said Dr. Scott. “Even if balanced, it reduces demand on workers without college degrees. All of it leads to downward pressure on wages.”
The Christian Science Monitor
July 22, 2016
The data were generally positive, a “nice reversal” from the more negative tenor of the last few monthly reports, said David Cooper, a senior economic analyst at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. But the report should not be viewed as a sign that “the current job market is as good as it gets,” Cooper said. “The prime-age employment-to-population ratio is still below the lowest level reached in the previous two recessions prior to the Great Recession,” he noted. The labor market is a key component of the U.S. economy, with job trends shaping the performance of other sectors.
MarketWatch
July 22, 2016
“We’ve seen a lot of states taking action in light of federal inaction,” said David Cooper, a senior economic analyst at the liberal Economic Policy Institute (EPI), which notes 26 states and the District of Columbia have set a higher minimum wage than the federal level… About 28 million American workers, or a quarter of the workforce, currently make less than $12 an hour, estimates Cooper at the EPI. Another 7 million would indirectly benefit by increased pay as employers adjust their wages accordingly, he added….”At its high point, in 1968, the minimum wage was equal to about $9.65 in today’s dollars. If you adjust for inflation, that means at $7.25, it’s worth about 25 percent less than it was a generation ago,” said the EPI’s Cooper. “It’s lost 10 percent of its value since it was last raised.”
CBS Moneywatch
July 22, 2016
Lawrence Mischel, president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, calculated that the wage hike, which will go into effect in 2017, amounts to a 3.2% annual increase. “That’s good, but it’s not other-worldly. The fact is those wages are not all that high. For a leading sector, they should pay more,” Mischel said.
The Guardian
July 22, 2016
Robert Scott, an economist whose research on trade policy has been favorably cited by Donald Trump’s campaign, rebuked the Republican presidential nominee on Thursday by criticizing his plan to negotiate trade deals and combat currency manipulation by imposing tariffs on Chinese imports. Trump’s campaign has cited research by Scott, a senior economist and director of trade and manufacturing policy research at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, saying as recently as last month in a campaign email that “according to the Economic Policy Institute, enforcing restrictions on currency manipulation as Trump has proposed could create up to 5.8 million jobs in just three years,” followed by a link to a 2014 report authored by Scott
Morning Consult
July 22, 2016