The paper is not the first to note the wide racial earnings gap. A paper released this fall from the progressive Economic Policy Institute found that these gaps are wider now than they were in 1979, thanks to rising unemployment, the decline of unions and weak enforcement of anti-discrimination laws. (The lax enforcement seems certain to continue if Trump’s pick for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, is confirmed. The Alabama Republican has been a vocal opponent of civil rights laws.)
The Huffington Post
December 1, 2016
Today, the Economic Policy Institute is publishing a report by Bruce Baker, a national expert in state school finance, charter schools, and teacher and administrator labor markets, that he hopes will help improve the level of public discourse the next time residents and political leaders are asked to make such high-stakes education decisions. Baker’s report looks at the fiscal impact of charter school expansion—an area that has received surprisingly little academic attention, despite the charter sector’s 25-year existence, and the growing public awareness that this is a critical issue to understand.
American Prospect
November 30, 2016
“She was a terrible Labor Secretary,” said Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “She cut the enforcement budgets and … OSHA protections, thereby leaving workers less safe and more likely to be cheated on their wages.”
Politico
November 30, 2016
“Today, working people across the country, from fast food workers to adjunct professors, are striking and demonstrating in favor of a $15 minimum wage – the largest demonstration in the history of the Fight for $15 movement,” Lawrence Mishel, president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said in a statement Tuesday. “A bold proposal such as $15 is needed to lift the earnings of the bottom third of the workforce, generate robust wage growth overall and fuel economic growth.”
U.S. News & World Report
November 30, 2016
Raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $12 would lift pay for 35 million workers, or 1 in 4 employees nationwide, according to the liberal Economic Policy Institute.
The Associated Press
November 30, 2016
Chao will have the difficult task of of convincing Congress to ask taxpayers to pony up for Trump’s pricey infrastructure plan. “Trump’s plan frames the infrastructure problem as a lack of innovative financing options,” the Economic Policy Institute’s Josh Bivens and Hunter Blair wrote in a blog post. “This is nonsense. The problem is that politicians don’t want to ask taxpayers to pay for valued infrastructure.”
ATTN:
November 30, 2016
Others, like a pair of researchers at the Economic Policy Institute, are asking questions about the plan’s details. Would the proposed tax credits be allowed to go to already-existing public-private partnership projects? And what about the desperately needed projects private investors aren’t gonna be super excited to fund? “Who decides which projects need to be built?” ask Josh Bivens and Hunter Blair. “How will the Trump administration provide needed infrastructure investments that are unlikely to be profitable for private providers (such as building lead-free water pipes in Flint, MI)?”
Alliance for American Manufacturing
November 30, 2016
The victory is largely a symbolic one, given that the U.S. has been losing more than 300,000 manufacturing jobs each year to overseas competition, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. But the jobs saved represent about half the 2,000 that Carrier was preparing to move south to Mexico. They go a long way to redeeming a pledge that candidate Trump made in February to halt Carrier’s offshoring–or slap a steep tariff on any air conditioners that Carrier imports from Mexico back to the U.S.
Politico
November 30, 2016
Some experts question whether Carrier’s move would be more than a symbolic victory for Trump. According to federal data, Indiana has lost more than 235,000 manufacturing jobs since 1969, and the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal thinktank, estimates that the US loses more than 300,000 factory jobs annually because of foreign competition.
The Guardian
November 30, 2016
Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, believes that the business wing of the Republican party and business lobbies like the Chamber of Commerce will push back on proposed changes. “A high priority for them is the ability to hire workers on these temporary visas — where the workers are often indentured because they can’t easily switch employers, and they are often underpaid compared to similarly situated American workers because laws and regulations allow it, and/or because of a lack of enforcement,” Costa said. That disturbing detail, along with the Disney case, suggests that there are good reasons to investigate the H-1B program and whether it’s being abused. Costa believes the Trump administration could reinterpret the H-1B statute in a way that makes it more difficult for companies to do so. Siskind agrees, and said organizations using the same foreign-based staffing system as in that Disney case will face the most pressure.
Engadget
November 30, 2016