When whites without college degrees look back, they can often remember fathers who were sustained by the booming industrial economy of postwar America. Since then, however, the industrial job market has slowed significantly. The hourly wages of male high school graduates declined by 14 percent from 1973 to 2012, according to analysis of data from the Economic Policy Institute. Although high school educated white women haven’t experienced the same major reversal of the job market, they may look at their husbands—or, if they are single, to the men they choose not to marry—and reason that life was better when they were growing up.
The New York Times
February 22, 2016
To cope with income loss, most reported falling back on personal savings—and in a sign of how the income erosion has cascading effects for the whole economy, nearly half took on credit-card debt, a quarter borrowed from friends, and 7 percent tapped into public assistance. This is happening in an economy in which regular wage theft for traditional workers is already tremendous; one analysis by the Economic Policy Institute found that more than $930 million were formally recovered for wage-theft victims over the course of 2012 alone, not counting cases of wage disputes that were never legally resolved.
The Nation
February 22, 2016
David Cooper, an economic analyst for the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., told The Associated Press that while wage increases are generally a good thing, he does have some hesitations about the regional approach included in Oregon’s legislation. “I think any time you create these sorts of somewhat arbitrary geographic districts, that’s when you can create opportunities for some sort of economic disruption,” he said. “I would prefer the whole state got to the same wage level but at a slower pace by region so that everyone is held to the same standard.”
Christian Science Monitor
February 22, 2016
Larry Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, a union-backed think tank, described the economic situation as a breach of trust where average Americans have languished while wealth continues to be accumulated by the rich. “People have lost faith in government,” he said. “People feel it’s not working for them.”
Los Angeles Times
February 22, 2016
Since the White House set out to define the challenge two years ago, there’s been little progress in closing the economic divide for American families — let alone the political divide over the government’s role in closing that gap. Never mind a consensus on the impact and effectiveness of specific policy solutions. “There are broad policies that could move things in the right direction because of where people are situated and certain types of jobs — like raising the minimum wage, creating policies that will ensure sustainable employment,” said Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy. “But there are also policies that are being eroded like affirmative action in higher education admissions.”
CNBC
February 22, 2016
The Week
February 22, 2016
“It’s surely true that the economy ‘feels’ less healthy to lots of people than a 4.9% unemployment rate suggests,” said Josh Bivens, research and policy director at left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. He pointed out that the Department of Labor has six different measures to figure out how the US labor market is doing. It’s usually the media and the policymakers that focus on that one particular figure, he said. “There is no perfect way to measure the labor market slack and the headline unemployment rate is looking rosier than some other indicators now, but this doesn’t mean it’s a flawed measure or that something else is the ‘real’ rate,” Bivens said.
The Guardian
February 22, 2016
A new analysis points out that the lowest black jobless rate of any state during the fourth quarter of 2015 – 6.7 percent in Virginia – was equal to the highest white unemployment rate, in West Virginia. In many states, the jobless rate for African Americans is still at or near double digits, and in 20 states, including California, the rate is at least double that for whites, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Sacramento Bee
February 22, 2016
White U.S. workers have almost five times the wealth in retirement accounts as black workers, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute said in a post on Thursday. EPI argues that the country’s move to 401(k) retirement accounts is exacerbating that wealth gap because they provide tax shelters for existing savings and don’t necessarily encourage retirement savings. More from EPI’s Monique Morrissey.
Politico
February 22, 2016
Claims by both Trump and Sanders that free trade has cost millions of American jobs are also misleading. Jobs are lost and jobs are created. The Economic Policy Institute says that our free trade agreement with South Korea has eliminated 75,000 jobs over three years. NAFTA, our agreement with Canada and Mexico, has cost 682,900 American jobs over 20 years, according to the institute.
Albuquerque Journal
February 22, 2016