Media clips
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The lapse in benefits is also expected to exert some drag on the economy. Michael Feroli, the chief economist of JP Morgan, estimates that the expiration of benefits will shave about 0.4 percentage points from first-quarter economic growth next year. The Economic Policy Institute recently estimate that the lapse will cut GDP by about 0.2 percent and cost 310,000 jobs.
The Washington Post November 12, 2013 -
“Just surpassing the pre-recession level of employment doesn’t come close to doing it,” Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told TIME. “There’s still long way to go before getting back to health.” Had jobs growth been on track with population growth, women would have added over 3 million more jobs than what they’ve actually gained and men would have added over 5 million.
Time Magazine November 12, 2013 -
Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, said the best remedy for the uneven job market is simply a stronger recovery.
Wall Street Journal November 12, 2013 -
The Employment Policies Institute has received funding from the restaurant industry, and the think tank has sponsored some of Wessels’s work.
The study has many supporters, as well. Michael Reich, a UC Berkeley economist and director of the university’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, said he and colleagues reviewed the study, along with all others released by the institute’s researchers, to ensure they meet the university’s research standards — which he called “the highest in the world.”
“I think the report’s methodology is sound,” said David Cooper, an economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., liberal-leaning think tank. “Reasonable people can debate their conclusions and policy implications.”
Wall Street Journal November 8, 2013 -
The effects of the H-1B visa program on wages is of particular interest to both economists and American unions. The Public Policy Institute of California, which has received funding from the tech industry, published a paper in December 2011 that shows H1-B visa holders are paid more than native workers and are more educated.
Hira, who previously conducted studies funded by the pro-union Economic Policy Institute, studied a smaller sample of H1-B workers and companies from 2010 to 2012 and found companies like Infosys typically paid foreign engineers only the minimum threshold that permits companies to bypass certain requirements under immigration law.
ABC News November 8, 2013 -
Lower tax burdens: Prior to the 1980s, taxes were much higher for the rich. The top income tax rate in 1980 was 70 percent. In 1945 it was 94 percent.”Why would you pay someone millions of dollars a year if the government was going to take 90% of it?” said Lawrence Mishel, President of the Economic Policy Institute.Now, the top tax rate is 39.5 percent. Lower taxes mean there’s now more of an incentive for people to chase, and for companies to give, huge paychecks.
CNNMoney November 8, 2013 -
The effects of the H-1B visa program on wages is of particular interest to both economists and American unions. The Public Policy Institute of California, which has received funding from the tech industry, published a paper in December 2011 that shows H1-B visa holders are paid more than native workers and are more educated.
Hira, who previously conducted studies funded by the pro-union Economic Policy Institute, studied a smaller sample of H1-B workers and companies from 2010 to 2012 and found companies like Infosys typically paid foreign engineers only the minimum threshold that permits companies to bypass certain requirements under immigration law.
ABC News November 6, 2013 -
On the other side, groups like the Economic Policy Institute assert that the H-1B program is filled with loopholes that allow firms to hire guest works without first recruiting qualified and available U.S. workers. As the report explained, high-skilled guest workers may be taking the jobs that equally qualified college-educated workers could fill. If the number of guest workers rises as provided for in the bills Congress is presently considering, there will be more guest workers and STEM green card holders than college graduates in the information technology areas. Guest workers will more than fill the STEM jobs available, as an earlier report by the EPI noted.
The Washington Post November 6, 2013 -
There’s no question that a part-time economy has taken hold in the U.S.
Since 2007, the rate of Americans working part-time rose from 17% to nearly 20%, a trend that has as much to do with the sluggish economic recovery as with employers’ general wariness about hiring.
And it can be worrisome for today’s young workers.
One in five college graduates are considered underemployed in the U.S., according a report by the Economic Policy Institute, leading many young adults to scrape by with a patchwork of part-time, contract or temporary gigs and none of the usual benefits of full-time employment, like health care and retirement accounts.
That leaves a lot of workers with a nagging uncertainty about being able to pay next month’s rent. Others, meanwhile, wouldn’t have it any other way, preferring the flexibility and freedom that comes with not being tied to a 9-to-5 office job.
Yahoo Finance November 5, 2013 -
Less well-covered has been the assault on workers’ rights as part of a coordinated, strategic, national and ideological program. There’s been excellent coverage of efforts by individual state legislatures, particularly efforts to roll back unionization for public-sector workers in Wisconsin and Michigan. But there hasn’t been a solid overview of how all these efforts hang together and how extensive and coordinated they are.
That has changed with a remarkable paper by the University of Oregon’s Gordon Lafer for the Economic Policy Institute, titled “The Legislative Attack on American Wages and Labor Standards, 2011–2012.” Lafer documents how extensive anti-labor efforts have been with the wave of newly conservative state governments, and he paints a picture of the forest that arises out of all these anti-labor trees.
The Washington Post November 5, 2013