Media clips
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NAFTA critics say numerous U.S. jobs have been lost over the past two decades because of the trade deficit with Mexico. The pro-labor Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., estimates that 850,000 U.S. jobs were displaced from 1993 to 2013 as a result of the deficit. “There’s no question that NAFTA led to a great wave of outsourcing of domestic production, and it encouraged firms to move hundreds of thousands of jobs from the U.S. to Mexico,” said the EPI’s Robert Scott, whose research often has been used in political campaigns… The Economic Policy Institute has reported that 2.4 million U.S. manufacturing jobs have been lost from 2001 to 2013 due to a rising trade deficit with China. A study by Yale’s Caliendo and two other economists came up with a lower number, estimating 800,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs lost to the opening of trade with China… Though not supportive of NAFTA, Scott of the Economic Policy Institute said he does not advocate renegotiating the treaty. “It’s a done deal,” he said, adding that “we could do more to help Mexico grow and that would build demand for U.S.-made manufacturing products.”
San Diego Union Tribune August 22, 2016 -
Now compare the BLS figures in the chart above with estimates for jobs lost due to foreign competition. According to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, in the 12 years from December 2001 to December 2013, 3.2 million jobs have been lost in the U.S. due to the merchandise trade deficit with China. That figure is a third higher than the estimate of 2.4 million over a similar period in a widely cited study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor David Autor and others.
Wall Street Journal Barron’s August 22, 2016 -
An estimated 2 million domestic workers are in the country, 93 percent are women and one-third are immigrant, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Household employees, including maids and cooks, weren’t included in 1930s labor law, though federal rules have since changed.
The Associated Press August 22, 2016 -
Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute think tank and a Sanders supporter in the primary, said in an interview that the millennial plan shows Sanders had a true impact on Clinton’s platform. “I think he made a big difference. I think he sharpened her attack on the wealthy and has pushed her to do more on, for example, fighting corporate offshoring of profits,” Eisenbrey said, also lauding Clinton’s stances on debt-free college and opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. Eisenbrey went so far as to call Clinton’s overall blueprint “the most powerful progressive economic platform that the Democrats have had.” And Joe Dinkin of the Working Families Party — which just endorsed Clinton after having backed Sanders — praised her millennial proposal for “big steps in the right direction” on addressing higher education costs and climate change. Soothing to Sanders fans? Quite likely, Eisenbrey said. Likely to make it through Congress? Could be a different story. “All of it is more ambitious than can be achieved with the House of Representatives [and] the Senate that we have today,” he said. “If she wins big enough and flips the Senate and by some miracle flips the House, then there’s a chance of achieving all of these things that she’s talking about.”
Mic August 19, 2016 -
According to a study from the Economic Policy Institute, wages for teachers have been steadily declining for the past decade when compared with those of similarly educated and experienced workers. In 2015, public school teachers’ weekly wages were 17% less than those of comparable workers, down from 4% less in 1996.
Time August 19, 2016 -
Robert E. Scott, senior economist with the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, has studied the trade agreement’s effects extensively. His 2011 paper found 682,000 jobs had been displaced because of NAFTA. In Pennsylvania, the number was 26,300, about .5 percent of the state’s entire employment. Further, Scott said the pact paved the way for future free trade agreements. “It played a disproportionate role,” he said, “in that every trade agreement after has been based on it.” Scott’s views on this are rare among economists. In 2015, the Congressional Research Service, Congress’ nonpartisan think tank, concluded NAFTA had relatively little effect on American jobs one way or the other and that many of the changes America has experienced since 1994 would’ve happened anyway as trade liberalization continued to occur in other ways…”The use of disaster,” Scott said, “that’s a pejorative that’s up to the viewer. I would say China and NAFTA if I were telling the story. That’s the difference.”… Consensus among economists is job losses because of NAFTA were minimal, though Robert E. Scott’s study showed Pennsylvania losing 26,300 jobs because of it.
Politifact August 19, 2016 -
Public-school teachers last year made 17% less in weekly wages than other workers with similar education levels and years of experience, compared with just 4% less in 1996,according to the study published by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank partly funded by teachers’ unions.
Wall Street Journal August 18, 2016 -
Once, teachers earned more than other professionals with comparable levels of education and experience. That has since changed, with a recent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute showing that teachers now earn 17 percent less than their counterparts. Part of the reason for the wage reductions can be explained by austerity measures undertaken by school districts, said one of the report’s authors. “Teachers missed out on the wage boom of the late 1990s, and in the recovery from the Great Recession, school districts have been under financial pressure and have not really been giving out wage increases,” said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute. “I think some teachers have foregone wage increases in order to preserve their benefits.
Marketplace August 18, 2016 -
Well, a new report from the Economic Policy Institute tells us that it’s time to re-evaluate our assumptions. In 1996, in absolute terms, teachers earned 4% less than workers with the same kinds of education and credentials. Today, that wage penalty is 17.3%. Adjusted for benefits, they are still 11% underpaid, compared to a 2% wage gap back in 1996. The report notes that this is most dramatic for women, for whom teaching was once a way to earn better wages than they could anywhere else. In 1960, the EPI notes, women teachers had a 14.7% wage gap in their favor. Today, they earn 13.9% less than they could, on average, by taking their skills elsewhere.
The Guardian August 18, 2016 -
Some economists are even more negative about China’s impact. Robert Scott, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, along with co-author Will Kimball, estimated the impact of Chinese trade to be much worse: causing around 3.2 million lost jobs, most of them in manufacturing. That is the “small problem,” Scott said. The bigger one is suppressed wages, as his colleague Josh Bivens argued in a 2013 analysis that estimated growing trade with less-developed countries lowered the wages of the average worker without a college degree by $1,800 (in 2011 dollars); one-third of it is attributable to China.
FiveThirtyEight August 18, 2016