Media clips
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Of course, millions of women in this country aren’t in this fortunate position, and that’s why I’m writing this. Across 33 states and Washington, D.C., the cost of full-time infant care for one child is more than in-state tuition at a four-year public college. For families with two children, child care costs range from about half as much as rent in San Francisco to nearly three times rent in Binghamton, New York, according to a 2015 report by the Economic Policy Institute. Tax credits and subsidies exist for working families, but they are paltry compared to what you need to pay to have someone watch your child while you commit to a career.
Good Housekeeping April 28, 2016 -
If we take social turbulence and relative deprivation as indicators of despair, the economic experience of women during the Great Recession may lend some clues. The Economic Policy Institute notes that, while men lost far more jobs than women during the 2008 global financial meltdown, they also enjoyed significantly more economic gains; while women added 3.6 million jobs between February 2010 and the June 2014, men gained 5.5 million. While women made up more than half the workforce in 2011, their jobs continue to be marred by the injustice of gender equity. Women are also paid less than their male co-workers, and are so often squeezed out of the maternity leave the rest of the advanced world enjoys.
Pacific Standard April 28, 2016 -
One report estimates that nearly half of black or Hispanic workers or single mothers could see their pay newly increase thanks to the rule change. If your employer doesn’t like it, they can either raise your pay over $50K, or stop asking you to work extremely long hours without overtime pay. Naturally, places that are used to having employees work long hours without paying overtime are worried. Colleges and universities are worried.
Gawker April 26, 2016 -
This trend of being an underemployed millennial is also not unique to New York. A recent report released by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that for recent college graduates, aged between 21 and 24 years old, the underemployment rate was 12.6%, compared to 26.8% in 2007. “A third of young high school graduates are underemployed and one in eight young college graduates is underemployment. Those are improvements from last year, but nowhere near the economy of 2000,” Teresa Kroeger, one of the authors of the EPI report’s authors, told the Guardian. The economy of 2000, by some standards, is when the economy has been at its best in the recent history.
The Guardian April 26, 2016 -
Of course, millions of women in this country aren’t in this fortunate position, and that’s why I’m writing this. Across 33 states and Washington, D.C., the cost of full-time infant care for one child is more than in-state tuition at a four-year public college. For families with two children, child care costs range from about half as much as rent in San Francisco to nearly three times rent in Binghamton, New York, according to a 2015 report by the Economic Policy Institute. Tax credits and subsidies exist for working families, but they are paltry compared to what you need to pay to have someone watch your child while you commit to a career.
Elle April 26, 2016 -
Some economists, however, see it differently. According to David Cooper, a senior economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, the notion that higher wages increase unemployment is oversold by opponents. “This is just pure scare tactics,” Cooper told ATTN:. “We’ve heard this for decades, and it’s never really materialized.” According to Cooper, even if higher wages do wind up cutting a small amount of jobs—which, studies show, is possible—better paid employees would pump money into the economy, creating more demand, and, therefore, jobs. “Even if there’s cost-savings to some restaurants, that should lead to job creation somewhere as long as those dollars are getting in the hands of of people that are going to go out and spend that money—and again, that’s part of the function of the minimum wage, to make sure that that cost savings being generated from that productivity improvement isn’t just going to a small subset of people,” Cooper said.
ATTN: April 26, 2016 -
The latest piece of damning evidence on this subject comes from the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank funded by the Labor Movement. It’s “Retirement Inequality Chartbook” calls 401(k)s “ an accident of history,” that is obscure parts of the U.S. tax code that were never meant to be substitutes for pensions, which were largely abandoned by corporate employers. Those with high salaries do very well in 401(k)s, the report notes, although everyone else comes up short. That’s because the high earners get the lion’s share of tax benefits, causing a widespread inequality among savers. “Retirement insecurity has worsened for most Americans as retirement wealth has become more unequal,” the EPI report notes. “For many groups, the typical household has no savings in retirement accounts and balances are low even when focusing only on households with savings.”
Forbes April 26, 2016 -
Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute is skeptical, though, that the Fed should be raising rates to fight inflation right now. “I’m not seeing any acceleration in inflation, no acceleration in wages,” Gould said. She pointed to the most recent Consumer Price Index report, for March, showing price inflation for all goods up 0.9 percent in the previous 12 months (energy prices were down 12.6 percent year-to-year, helping to account for the very weak overall inflation figure). Core inflation, excluding food and energy prices, rose 2.2 percent. Americans’ average hourly wages, meanwhile, rose 2.3 percent on an annual basis according to the latest Labor Department report, for March. “Having a very low-inflation economy causes problems,” Gould said. “People are still trying to get out from under a lot of their household debt. If people’s wages went up along with inflation, that might help.”
Marketplace April 25, 2016 -
EPI data cited in chart.
The Washington Post April 25, 2016 -
The old rationale that minimum-wage jobs are for teenagers, or a stepping-stone for adults, and therefore should not be tampered with too severely, is misleading. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 80 percent of hourly wage workers are over age 25; and the Economic Policy Institute states that 26 percent of the workforce earns less that $10.55/hour.
Salon April 25, 2016