Defined benefit pensions still more or less work, but they’re vanishing fast. But the 401(k) system is a blight on the face of the American republic. This set of tax subsidies (together with a few other similar programs) is suppose to enable people to invest for retirement, but as a new report from the Economic Policy Institute shows in crushing detail, it’s failing in every conceivable way.
The Week
March 10, 2016
By tying growth in the minimum wage to inflation, taxpayers save money and the economy grows. Estimates from the Economic Policy Institute show that a wage increase of $1.17 an hour among people earning near-minimum wages helps one million hardworking people leave government assistance.
Idaho Statesman
March 10, 2016
Both pictures clearly support the above assertions connecting anger to paychecks: decades of stagnant earnings for blue-collar factory workers and sharp declines in the real earnings of middle- and low-wage white men. I’m sure this isn’t news to many readers. The Economic Policy Institute has been tracking such wage trends for years. (It will soon be releasing its 2015 wage decile results; I’ve seen them and they’re really interesting, but my lips are sealed for now.)
The Washington Post
March 9, 2016
Americans aren’t saving much for retirement. Despite the tax advantages associated with 401(k)s and similar accounts, the average family has just $5,000 in retirement savings, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute. With the future of Social Security uncertain, and corporate pensions going the way of the landline telephone, personal retirement accounts were supposed to play a vital role in the future of retirement.
Looking across 401(k)s, IRAs, and other retirement savings accounts, the Economic Policy Institute found some pretty depressing numbers. Young families aren’t putting money aside for their future needs. And even those approaching retirement age have precious little stashed away.
The Boston Globe
March 9, 2016
The gender wage gap is alive and well (see Payscale’s Inside the Gender Pay Gap or the World Economic Forum’s Ten Years of The Global Gender Gap or the Economic Policy Institute report on Closing the pay gap and beyond). The problem has been attributed to numerous factors, including overt and subconscious bias in the marketplace, women’s inability to negotiate or failure to negotiate at all, women taking time off from their career to care for children or parents, and women selecting traditionally lower-paying roles and industries.
Time Magazine
March 9, 2016
Many left-wing writers and economists blame the North American Free Trade Agreement for opening up American workers to the whims of the global labor market, which has sucked out jobs and sapped wage growth. The result of NAFTA “has been 20 years of stagnant wages and the upward redistribution of income, wealth and political power,” writes Jeff Faux at the Economic Policy Institute.
The Atlantic
March 9, 2016
The Economic Policy Institute, a D.C. think tank affiliated with organized labor, estimated in 2014that since 2001 Chinese workers had taken more than 3 million jobs from Americans. Those in favor of free trade argue that commerce between countries ultimately increases economic growth and helps lift the country as a whole, but few dispute that free trade has also negatively impacted parts of the country that relied heavily on manufacturing jobs.
Yahoo News
March 9, 2016
Over the last three decades, high-profile critics of such trade deals—from Sanders to Pat Buchanan to Ross Perot to now Trump—have argued that by reducing U.S. tariffs on goods from countries that have lower wage, labor, environmental and human rights standards, such trade deals would prompt manufacturers to move production facilities abroad in an effort to cut costs and boost profits. Those critics’ arguments have been buttressed by the export deficits that accompanied the trade agreements—deficits that have together resulted in the loss of roughly 4 million U.S. jobs, according to estimates from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
International Business Times
March 9, 2016
Economists at the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute have long pointed to the negative effects of free trade, with massive loss of jobs to Mexico and China.
Forbes
March 9, 2016
That’s why a group of us in Congress have introduced the Seniors and Veterans Emergency Benefits Act (SAVE Benefits Act). This bill would give a onetime payment of $581 to those people who aren’t receiving a COLA this year—a raise equal to the 3.9 percent pay increase the top CEOs received. Social Security payments average only about $1,340 a month—and millions of seniors who rely on those checks are barely scraping by. A $581 increase could cover almost three months of groceries for seniors or a year’s worth of out-of-pocket costs on critical prescription drugs for the average Medicare beneficiary. That $50 a month is worth a heck of a lot to the 70 million Americans who would have just a little more in their pockets as a result of this bill. In fact, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, that little boost could lift more than one million Americans out of poverty.
The Nation
March 8, 2016