Meanwhile, the Economic Policy Institute’s “missing worker” metric—which tracks potential workers who by all rights would be either employed or looking for work, but aren’t due to a lack of job opportunities—finally started falling in mid-2015, and dropped again from February to March.
The Week
April 4, 2016
Daniel Costa, Director of Immigration Law and Policy Research at the Economic Policy Institute, pointed out that India was also upset last time Congress imposed fees on the guest worker program in 2010, but nothing came of the country’s complaint. “I don’t think they have much of a case, and they probably know they don’t have much of a case, but it’s sort of more symbolic to try to threaten and keep American legislators from passing any reforms on the program,” Costa said.
Vice News
April 4, 2016
Yet critics of the H-1B visa effort counter that the program has undermined and eroded opportunities for workers born or living in the United States to land well-paying technology jobs. “Technology companies have gotten used to cheap labor on demand, and by bringing in cheap labor, high-tech employers are able to suppress wages,” said Ron Hira, a research associate with the Economic Policy Institute. “Tech employers hold the work permits through this program, and that gives the company extraordinary leverage over the foreign worker and limits their mobility.”
During 2014, 36.8 percent of Silicon Valley’s population was foreign born, a number that rose to 37.4 percent in 2015, according to a report released this year by Joint Venture Silicon Valley. California has a foreign-born population of 27.1 percent, while the U.S. is at 13.1 percent. “If you are a tech company and you know that you can pay much less for a worker through an H-1B visa, why wouldn’t you?” said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research with the Economic Policy Institute. “Companies can pay $30,000 a year less to a worker in an H-1B visa program. Multiply that over the six years of the visa, that’s real money.”
San Jose Mercury News
April 4, 2016
Paul Krugman is correct that much of the negative impact of foreign trade for Americans results from our inadequate domestic policies, including the undercutting of the bargaining power of workers. But for the last 25 years this argument has been used to rationalize a perverse politics in which Democratic presidents ally with big business and Republicans to make trade deals that expose American workers to brutal competition, and then complain that they are helpless to stop these same “allies” from dismantling social safety nets and destroying labor unions. Like it or not, only the threat of protectionism will change this cynical behavior. Those who profess to care about the future of American workers should be demanding an immediate freeze, and where possible a rollback, of any new trade agreements until we have first established domestic policies, like those in Europe and Canada, that allow workers to prosper from trade. —Jeff Faux, Distinguished Fellow, Economic Policy Institute, Washington
The New York Times
April 4, 2016
According to the Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator, the basic-needs budget for a single person in Bakersfield, California, is $14.64. With a single child, it rises to $23.59. In Baltimore, it is $17 for a single person and $29.58 for a worker with a dependent child. The full-time wage necessary to pay fair market rent for a modest two-bedroom apartment in a non-metropolitan area is $14 in both Arizona and Montana, and $18 in California. This compares to the current value of a 2021 $15 wage of $13.34.
The American Prospect
April 4, 2016
According to numbers from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, the average worker who will see a raise under the new budget is a woman over 25 years old who works full-time and typically provides half her household’s income.
Buzzfeed
April 1, 2016
A slightly higher unemployment rate is not exactly bad news. Some economists would like to see the unemployment rate to go up slightly, if it signalled that Americans who had previously given up looking for jobs were now becoming more optimistic and attempting to re-enter the labor market. “While the unemployment rate has been holding steady, a slight rise in coming months could actually be a positive move—if driven by rising labor force participation, which would mean that potential workers see hope for themselves in the labor market and have started to look for jobs,” explained Elise Gould, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
The Guardian
April 1, 2016
When California and New York last approved minimum-wage increases in 2013, 14 states followed suit a year later and most at least matched New York’s current rate of $9 an hour. California’s current minimum is $10 an hour. The federal rate still prevails in 21 states. “It’s going to add fuel to the fire for other states looking to raise the minimum wage and potentially encourage them to go higher than they were initially thinking,” said David Cooper, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Wall Street Journal
April 1, 2016
If true, it would mean that the US women soccer players are just like many other women in the United States, earning less than their male counterparts. On average, working women earn about 83 cents for every dollar men make, according to calculations from the Economic Policy Institute.
Boston Globe
April 1, 2016
Boston Globe
April 1, 2016