Media clips
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A few years ago, researchers at the Economic Policy Institute and Demos proposed using existing student aid programs — including Federal Work-Study and the Free Application for Federal Student Aid — to facilitate internship grants for low-income students. Their proposed Student Opportunity Program would provide funding equal to $3,500 for three-month grants and $7,000 for six-month grants to students who couldn’t afford to work without compensation.
The New York Times July 5, 2016 -
Trump’s campaign has repeatedly cited work done by Robert Scott at the Economic Policy Institute — a surprise given that it’s considered a liberal-leaning organization — to argue that NAFTA has cost the U.S. as many as 700,000 jobs.But Scott, who argues NAFTA has failed to live up to its promises, said he believes that while the threat of higher tariffs can be used to force change in countries that manipulate their currencies or take other protectionist actions — think China or Japan — they shouldn’t in Mexico, which has highly integrated supply chains with the U.S., especially in areas like auto production, and isn’t engaged in such protectionist measures. “It’s going to raise the cost of cars coming from Mexico (and) it’s going to be costly,” said Scott, EPI’s senior economist. “Basically, U.S. manufacturers have outsourced … small vehicles to Mexico (where they are produced more cheaply).” Tariffs, he added, “would be a boon to Kia and Hyundai and Toyota” and other companies importing into the U.S.
Detroit Free Press July 5, 2016 -
Lawrence Mishel, an economist at the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., who studies labor markets, said the study’s “big takeaway is that San Francisco doesn’t stand out as being all that much of a special home for self employment or so-called gig work, and that digital platform work is just a small part of a broader set of employment practices.”
San Francisco Chronicle July 5, 2016 -
“I find myself put in a strange position,” said Robert E. Scott, an economist and self-described “progressive Democrat,” whose work Trump often cites in his speeches. “In one sense Trump is correct in his diagnosis that globalization has played a big role in the impoverishment of non-college-educated workers,” said Scott, who is director of trade and manufacturing policy research at the Economic Policy Institute.“Trump blames it all on Hillary and Bill Clinton, but this has been a bipartisan policy — and one that has been supported mostly by Republicans.”
Los Angeles Times July 4, 2016 -
That’s a departure, although not as much as you may think — people forget that Mitt Romney similarly threatened a trade war with China during the 2012 campaign. Still, it was interesting to see a Republican presidential candidate name-check not just Bernie Sanders but the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, which has long been critical of globalization.
The New York Times July 4, 2016 -
The Economic Policy Institute, a think tank focused on low- and middle-income workers, estimates that, on average, CEOs in 2013 made nearly 300 times more than the typical worker – up from about 20 times more in 1960.
Los Angeles Times July 3, 2016 -
What working-class Americans really need, the folks at EPI say, is a much broader effort to raise their living standards. That effort might start with a more aggressive posture on trade. But it would also include stronger unions, spending on public works, more financial assistance with child care and other necessities — as well as better support for people who lose their jobs. “Cutting taxes on the rich (another Trump goal) will only hurt working people,” Robert Scott, EPI’s chief economist and a supporter of more aggressive trade policies, told The Huffington Post in an email. “We need to fix the domestic economy — rebuild U.S. infrastructure, which will take lots of public spending and tax revenues, and tax carbon and make the transition to a clean energy economy, which is also not cheap, and invest in rebuilding manufacturing, and invest in the social safety net.” And Trump, Scott says, “is not the guy to do any of these things.”
The Huffington Post July 3, 2016 -
According to a study by Robert Scott, of the Economic Policy Institute, Wal-Mart accounted for approximately 11.2 percent of American imports from China between 2001 and 2013. The study, released in 2015, says the company added $36.7 billion to the United States’ trade deficit with China in the same time frame. According to Scott, Wal-Mart’s trade deficit with China is equivalent to the loss of 314,500 jobs during that period, which were jobs that would have provided higher wages and better benefits. He also argued that 100 American jobs have been displaced for every actual or promised job created by Wal-Mart’s 2013 initiative.
Joplin Globe July 2, 2016 -
The Economic Policy Institute estimates 290,000 Tennessee workers, or 29 percent of the state’s salaried workforce, fall into the salary gap being addressed. Nationally, there are 12.5 million workers.”Many of them are being made to work overtime without pay, even though they should be receiving pay,” EPI spokesman Dan Crawford said. “We’ve gotten very used to in this country to working very, very long hours without any sort of compensation…. The overtime rule is the first step in sort of getting back to a point where work is valued a little bit more and where workers’ time is valued a little bit more.”The flexibility that Alexander says will affect workers who become hourly workers is rare among many salaried workers who fall into this salary range, he said.”This is going to mean more free time for workers or more money in their pockets or a combination of both, and I don’t think that is going to hurt morale at all,” Crawford said.
The Tennessean July 2, 2016 -
In this post, Elaine Weiss has some advice for federal policy-makers who are drawing up the rules. She wants them to watch a film about a high-poverty school in Ohio to learn what students, teachers and schools really need to succeed today. Weiss is the national coordinator of the Broader Bolder Approach to Education, a project of the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute.
The Washington Post July 2, 2016