Media clips
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Here, from the Economic Policy Institute, is something very easy to understand. Black Americans suffer from significantly higher levels of unemployment even when they have the same level of education as white people. It takes some impressive acrobatics of rhetoric to exclude past and present racism from the reasons behind a situation like this, when black people suffer nearly double (or more than double) the unemployment as white people do at all educational levels.
Gawker March 7, 2016 -
This year’s occasion for despair comes courtesy of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, which released a report Thursday titled “The State of American Retirement: How 401(ks) Have failed Most American Workers.” According to EPI’s analysis of the Survey of Consumer Finances between 2000 and 2013, slightly less than one-half of prime working-age families (that’s families headed up by someone between the ages of 32 and 61) have a grand total of bubkes in their retirement accounts. (I use the Yiddish only because no other language can quite transmit the absurd awfulness of this fact.)
Slate March 7, 2016 -
Josh Bivens of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute said that the drop in wages in February “is a real stumble in getting wage inflation higher.” But, he added, we may be seeing slack in the market because more people are hopeful that job prospects exist and are jumping back into the labor market for them. The only problem? Not all of them have found jobs yet.
PBS News Hour March 7, 2016 -
For millions of Americans, the prospects for a comfortable retirement continue to erode. That’s the latest finding of an updated report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a progressive think tank in Washington that has been cataloging the trend for many years.
Time March 7, 2016 -
Josh Bivens, research and policy director of the progressive Economic Policy Institute, is less pessimistic than Alpert about the economy’s trajectory. But he argues that people are especially disappointed with the sluggish wage growth, because their expectations have risen after years of consistent job growth. “People are going to be unhappy about the economy until it starts delivering reliable wage increases,” Bivens said. “In 2011 and 2012, we had jobs again, and wages were not up, but people were willing to be patient. Now, seven years into the official recovery, people are justifiably less patient.”
The Huffington Post March 7, 2016 -
In 2001, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute tallied up the job losses from the North American Free Trade Agreement (better known as NAFTA) passed in 1993. Only California lost more jobs from NAFTA than Michigan, EPI estimated. Michigan shed more than 46,000 jobs, 40,000 of them in manufacturing alone—mostly in the automotive sector.
The Washington Post March 7, 2016 -
That uptick on the far right is significant. As the Economic Policy Institute’s Josh Bivens explained to The Week, there’s a debate among economists over how much of that fall is “cyclical” or “structural.” “Cyclical” basically means, “due to the recession.” If there aren’t enough jobs, people will get discouraged and leave the labor force. Which suggests that if government boosts aggregate demand with the right fiscal and monetary policies, it can create new jobs and bring them back in. “Structural” means some deep and foundational change in the economy. The aging of the population is one example: If a larger portion of our population is retiring, that will lower the natural ceiling on how high the labor force participation rate can go. “Roughly half of the decline since 2007 is unambiguously demographic,” said Bivens. “It’s that remaining half that people mostly argue over.”
The Week March 7, 2016 -
A researcher with the Economic Policy Institute says the federal government needs to recognize that it played a deliberate role in creating racially segregated neighborhoods in cities like St. Louis. At a Missouri History Museum Symposium Saturday, the think tank’s Richard Rothstein drew a direct line between today’s segregated schools and neighborhoods and two federal housing programs from the 1930s, 40s and 50s: public housing and subsidized construction. “We have a national myth that the reason our metropolitan areas are segregated is for informal reasons—private prejudice, differences in income, demographic trends, racial steering by real estate agents and so forth,” Rothstein said. “The reality is that the segregation that we see today was established by the federal government with help from state and local governments. It’s an officially established system.”
St. Louis Public Radio March 7, 2016 -
Sanders appears to be citing an estimate from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning group which has opposed free-trade agreements, which estimated a job loss of nearly 700,000. (Another group, Public Citizen, pegs the jobs loss at 1 million.) But these are not universally accepted estimates, with many economists say that the job losses in manufacturing cannot be easily blamed just on NAFTA.
He is citing research from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. The 51 percent figure refers to high school graduates between 17 and 20 years old who are not enrolled in additional schooling. This report is different from the official unemployment rate published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which does not break out data for 17- to 20-year-olds.
The Washington Post March 7, 2016 -
The February jobs report is the last significant batch of economic data before Federal Reserve policymakers meet this month to determine whether to enact another small hike in a key interest rate. The mixed data on job gains and wages in the wake of recent financial market turmoil could lead central bank officials to hold off on a rate increase. “Continued months of strong job growth should eventually translate into durable accelerations in wage growth, but it hasn’t happened yet,” said Josh Bivens, research and policy director at the Economic Policy Institute think tank. “Given this, job creation and economic expansion should continue to be encouraged, not tamped down with another interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve at their next meeting.”
Los Angeles Times March 4, 2016