“This slow productivity growth is likely itself a function of continuing economic weakness,” Josh Bivens, research and policy director at the Economic Policy Institute, said in a statement Friday. “In short, today’s data highlights the need for policymakers – particularly the Federal Reserve – to make economic growth and full employment a top priority and the need to refrain from undertaking measures (like further interest rate increases) that would slow the pace of growth in the coming year.”
U.S. News and World Report
February 1, 2016
The Walton family, who own large shares of Wal-Mart stock, were recently estimated to be worth around $145 billion. Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute estimates that their net worth exceeds that of 1.7 million families earning the median income, combined.
The Huffington Post
February 1, 2016
As research by the Economic Policy Institute demonstrates, the growth of arbitration clauses has drastically diminished the ability of workers to assert their rights when those rights are violated by their employer. Private arbitrators are more likely to side with employers over workers, and when they do side with workers they typically award far less in damages than federal judges.
Think Progress
February 1, 2016
Child care is a big bummer. Putting a 4-year old in day care in Missouri or Illinois costs three quarters of the tuition needed to send an 18-year-old to a state college, according to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute.
St. Louis Post Dispatch
February 1, 2016
James Parrott of the labor-backed Fiscal Policy Institute said Tuesday that the nonpartisan, labor-backed think tank called the Economic Policy Institute has found most “low-wage earners” now making less than $15 an hour are working full-time and struggling. The Washington-based organization also found that 34 percent of children in New York would have a parent who would benefit from the higher minimum wage.
Newsday
February 1, 2016
Such clauses are increasingly common in employment contracts — and, according to critics, often to the detriment of workers. Plaintiffs are more likely to lose claims in binding arbitration than in the federal courts, and when they do win, damages are substantially less, a recent report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found.
International Business Times
January 29, 2016
The Economic Policy Institute, a labor policy think tank, also examined the job and unemployment numbers for 2015 versus pre-recession levels.
Denver Post
January 29, 2016
Polls show that Mr Trump draws much of his support from white, working-class men with a high-school education. While the US economy has recovered from the global financial crisis, they have not sensed much improvement because of stagnant wages. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the median income for households, excluding the elderly, fell 12 per cent from 2000 to 2014.
Financial Times
January 29, 2016
See excerpt: The racial wealth gap is a long-standing vestige of racism and restrictive federal, state and local policies that explicitly excluded African-Americans from opportunities whites had to build wealth. According to the latest Survey of Consumer Finances, the median African-American family has about 8 cents in wealth for every dollar held by the median white family. The effects of this go beyond a single generation — inheritance is one of the factors contributing to a widening wealth gap. That’s because wealth affords any number of mobility-enhancing opportunities, including the ability to own property, pay for higher education, build a secure retirement and access to high quality health care. Wealth also provides a degree of economic stability against the uncertainties of job loss, major illness or death.
The New York Times
January 28, 2016
Here’s some good — and generally overlooked — news about the U.S. economy: Among major ethnic and racial groups, African Americans scored the biggest job advances in 2015. This conclusion comes from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a left-leaning think tank and advocacy group. It reports that black Americans made “notable employment gains . . . even as employment growth for whites and Hispanics slowed.” The evidence? EPI cites a statistic called the “employment-to-population ratio,” which is the share of adults who have a job.
The Washington Post
January 28, 2016