But numerous studies show undocumented immigrants aren’t stealing jobs – they are helping to expand the economy. “In the ongoing debate on immigration, there is broad agreement among academic economists that it has a small but positive impact on the wages of native-born workers overall: although new immigrant workers add to the labor supply, they also consume goods and services, which creates more jobs,” Heidi Shierholz, chief economist to the U.S. Department of Labor and formerly of the liberal Economic Policy Institute, wrote in a study funded in part by U.S. labor unions.
International Business Times
January 15, 2016
“Workers in the top 1 percent,” Bank found, “tend to be 40 to 60 years old, be men, have tertiary education, work in finance or manufacturing and be senior managers.” At worst, that’s a group ripe for rent-seeking. At best, it doesn’t sound much like the innovators Graham is so worried about discouraging. The liberal Economic Policy Institute has done similar work on America’s top 1 percent, and found that at least a quarter of its increased income share since 1979 can be attributed to finance.
The Washington Post
January 14, 2016
Lawrence Mishel and Veronique de Rugy talked about the economic policies and goals put forth by President Obama in his State of the Union address.
C-SPAN
January 14, 2016
Unemployed workers over the age of 50 “really have a hard time finding work,” said Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Proponents of wage insurance programs see them as a way to ease people back into the labor force while softening the blow that comes from accepting a job with lower wages.
Al Jazeera America
January 14, 2016
The gains of economic recovery have certainly been beneficial to those of great wealth – including the culprits behind the crash – but have meant little to the average American. Of course, that has everything to do with the structure of the US economy since Ronald Reagan swept to power. Consider this: according to the Economic Policy Institute – a thinktank close to the embattled US labour movement – between 1979 and 2007, the top 1% seized 53.9% of the entire increase in US income.
The Guardian
January 14, 2016
If you look over the last 10 years, even after recent losses, the S&P 500 is up more than 50%. During that same time, an employee who managed to remain employed through the recession and earned nine 2.5% raises is earning just 25% more now. An analysis by the Economic Policy Institute shows that “workers’ share of corporate income hasn’t recovered” since the recession.
Fortune
January 14, 2016
Others, still, argue that artificially dirt cheap currencies in Asia – including in China, whether it’s a TPP party or not – could wipe out all of the economic gains from a ratified trade deal. Notes Rob Scott, from the Economic Policy Institute: China, as the world’s largest currency manipulator, could affect trade in the TPP in at least two ways. First, as a result of relatively weak rules of origin, the U.S. and other countries would be vulnerable to increased imports from China through the TPP. Second, currency manipulation by China could influence other TPP members to adjust or manipulate the value of their currencies, in order to remain competitive with China, and thereby nullify some or all of the benefits of the TPP to the United States.
Alliance for American Manufacturing
January 14, 2016
Larry Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, took issue with the president’s assessment of the root causes in wage stagnation. Instead of blaming technological improvements, Mishel told CNBC, Obama would have done well to point to “policy choices over many decades that worked to lessen the ability of the typical workers to get a good deal from their employer: lowered minimum wage, rules that make it harder to collectively bargain, bad trade deals, excessive unemployment and failure to enforce wage standards.”
CNBC
January 13, 2016
The American economy still has major weaknesses. As organizations like the Economic Policy Institute have pointed out repeatedly, wages aren’t rising that quickly.
The Huffington Post
January 13, 2016
David Cooper, senior economy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, which researches the impact of economic trends and policies on working people, gave the TradeWinds move luke-warm approval. “Even though $1.50 an hour doesn’t seem like much, if someone is working full time year-round, that’s more than $3,000,” he said. “If you’re annual income at $8.50 was $17-18,000, that $3,000 raise can be significant.” But he noted that EPI calculates that a single adult with no children would require an annual income of just over $28,000 to achieve a “modest yet adequate” standard of living in the Tampa Bay area. At just over $20,000, “they’re just not going to get there,” Cooper said.
Tampa Tribune
January 13, 2016