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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 -
Max Sawicky, a former economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank in the U.S., outlined a progressive case against basic income in 2013, calling it a “distraction” from raising the minimum wage, guaranteeing full employment, rolling back Clinton-era welfare reforms and supporting unions — all policies, he argues, “more in keeping with our current system and our political culture.”
FiveThirtyEight April 25, 2016 -
Gabler laments that he might have avoided his fate if his “income had steadily grown the way incomes used to grow in America.” But, he says, “it didn’t, and they don’t.” He claims that inflation-adjusted hourly wages peaked in 1972. That is flat-out wrong. The liberal Economic Policy Institute says that the median hourly wage peaked in 2009. My re-analyses of its estimates—which use a better inflation adjustment—indicate that last year, the median hourly wage was 17 percent higher than in 1973.
National Review April 25, 2016 -
According to a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute, the labor market for recent high school and college graduates has gotten better since the recession, but young people—especially minorities—still face elevated unemployment and weak wage growth. In the report “The Class of 2016,” researchers found the unemployment rate to be 5.6 percent for young college graduates and 9.4 percent for young black college graduates, which is higher than the 9 percent unemployment rate for young white college graduates at the peak of the recession. For young high school graduates, the unemployment rate jumps to 17.9 percent, which is also higher than before the recession. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for young, black high school graduates is 28.4 percent.
The Boston Globe April 22, 2016 -
The Economic Policy Institute released a report today that shows that for all those advantages, young women still earn far less than young men. According to the EPI’s annual report, male college graduates earned 8.1 percent more in 2016 than in 2000, while female college graduates earned 6.8 percent less than in 2000. Meaning, it’s not only that circumstances aren’t improving as quickly for women as they are for men—they’re getting worse.
Elle April 22, 2016 -
There’s more bad news for women about the gender pay gap. Although more women are graduating from American colleges and universities than ever before, they are still being paid less than their male counterparts when they enter the workforce, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) indicated in a new report Thursday.
The study published by the Washington-based think tank affiliated with the U.S. labor movement found that the gender wage gap has continued to grow among college graduates since 2000 and that black and Hispanic students have higher unemployment rates than their white peers.
International Business Times April 22, 2016