Media clips
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Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute said the late-1990s economic boom provides the strongest example in recent decades of an economy in which very-low unemployment translated into very-robust pay gains for a wide range of workers up and down the income ladder. “We saw substantial wage growth, across the wage distribution—a full-employment economy, a tighter economy,” Gould said.
Marketplace November 9, 2015 -
Not everyone is on board with a December rate hike. When Yellen appeared before Congress on Wednesday, a number of representatives questioned her on whether the risks of increasing the rate in December outweighed the benefits. “The Federal Reserve should keep in mind the lackluster growth we’ve seen throughout 2015 and continue to let the economy recover,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “They should not raise interest rates until wages rise further and for a sustained period of time, and people on the edges of the economy get jobs.” Gould pointed to the employment-to-population ratio, which at 59.3% has shown little movement over the past year, as a reason to hold off on raising interest rates. The labor participation rate remained at 62.4% – the lowest since 1977.
The Guardian November 9, 2015 -
Few economists expect the U.S. to create construction work at the housing-boom pace of the mid-2000s, but in a labor market saturated with low-wage work, the dearth of these decent-paying jobs is especially painful. “It would be great for the economy to have more jobs, period,” Elise Gould, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said. “But [construction] is a sector where there are so many benefits.”
International Business Times November 9, 2015 -
The increase would mean about $600 more a year for the average retiree on Social Security. CEO pay at the nation’s largest companies rose $600,000 to $16.3 million in 2014, according to analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank that Warren cites in her proposal.
CNN Money November 9, 2015 -
The people who take care of America’s children, and make it possible for their parents to work outside the home, are paid less than dog trainers or janitors. “Despite the crucial nature of their work, child care workers’ job quality does not seem to be valued in today’s economy,” writes Elise Gould, the author of a new report released by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
VOX November 9, 2015 -
Many child-care workers’ wages are so low that they could not afford to put their own children in child-care programs, according to the study by the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute. In Los Angeles County, a child-care worker’s median annual income in 2014 was $22,000, according to the study. By contrast, a pre-school worker earned about $30,000. The Economic Policy Institute has calculated a one-person family budget for Los Angeles County to be about $35,000, which is considered the cost of a “modest, yet adequate” lifestyle, including housing, food, child care and transportation costs.
Los Angeles Daily News November 9, 2015 -
Nationwide, for 2014, child care and preschool workers earned low wages and few received healthcare or pension benefits, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit think tank. The report finds that across the country, despite a high percentage of workers with some college education, most did not earn enough to cover a basic family budget. In Los Angeles County, the problem was acute. Most child care workers earned less than the poverty threshold for full-time work. Two-thirds of preschool workers couldn’t cover a one-person budget with their full-time wage while over 90 percent of all L.A. County child care workers fell short of paying for basic living expenses. “Across the country, child care workers have a difficult time making ends meet,” said Elise Gould, the report’s author. “The poverty rate of child care workers is twice that of other workers.”
Southern California Public Radio November 9, 2015 -
One place all that money is not going: the pockets of the workers doing all that childcare. On average, these women (it’s almost entirely women) are paid significantly less than the average American worker and are twice as likely to live in poverty, a new study released by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found. The median hourly wage for childcare workers in the U.S. is $10.39, nearly 40 percent below the median hourly wage of workers in other occupations. Even when accounting for the demographic makeup of the childcare industry—workers are more likely to be minorities, much more likely to be women, and less likely to have a bachelor’s or advanced degree—their earnings were still 23 percent lower than in other occupations. Childcare workers also had less access to benefits, such as health insurance and retirement funds, than people employed in other fields.
The Atlantic November 6, 2015 -
Last month, the Economic Policy Institute told us that child care costs are more than rent in many U.S. cities and more than in-state college tuition in others. In its latest report, a study on the wages of U.S. child care workers, the EPI follows up with the understatement of the year: “The unaffordability of child care is not driven by excessively lavish pay in the sector.” In fact, in most cities and regions in the country, more than 90 percent of child care workers (excluding preschool teachers) don’t make enough money to achieve a “modest yet adequate living standard” for one person where they live, a standard drawn by the EPI’s family budget calculator. Child care workers who support other family members have it even tougher, which is one reason why 1 in 7 live below the poverty line and nearly half use one or more public support programs to make ends meet, compared with just a quarter of the total workforce.
Slate November 6, 2015 -
In a new analysis, Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), finds that child care workers are among the lowest-paid workers in the country. On average, child care professionals made $10.31 an hour in 2014—39% less than the average worker in the U.S., who earns an average $17 an hour. Moreover, most of these employees don’t receive job-based benefits: In 2014, only 15% of child care workers had health insurance and just 9% had pensions.
Fortune November 6, 2015