Princeton University officials announced recently that they would not accede to student demands that they remove President Woodrow Wilson’s name on its school of public and international affairs and a residential college—calls made because of his support of racial segregation. The trustees did say, however, that the school would be more transparent “in recognizing Wilson’s failings and shortcomings as well as the visions and achievements that led to the naming of the school and the college in the first place.” Here, from scholar Richard Rothstein, is a response to the trustees and a look at the issue of how historical figures should be judged.
The Washington Post
April 18, 2016
But El Camino did not want its teachers to feel as though they were giving up something when the campus left district control five years ago. So teachers retained their union representation. L.A. Unified and the teachers union also agreed to give El Camino teachers up to five years to return to the district. “This is a charter school that did at least try to do right by teachers,” said Monique Morrissey, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, which is based in Washington. “It did put a premium from the get-go on retaining unionized, professional teachers rather than taking the low road—using low-paid, unprofessional, nonunionized teachers and churning through them.”
Los Angeles Times
April 18, 2016
Research, however, shows no significant connection between increasing the minimum wage and jobs. A 2009 analysis of 64 United States minimum-wage studies found “little or no evidence of a negative association between minimum wages and employment.” Likewise, a 2013 Economic Policy Institute (EPI) report found that “Research over the past two decades has shown that, despite skeptics’ claims, modest increases in the minimum wage have little to no negative impact on jobs. In fact, under current labor market conditions, where tepid consumer demand is a major factor holding businesses back from expanding their payrolls, raising the minimum wage can provide a catalyst for new hiring.”
Think Progress
April 18, 2016
Finally, companies can cut profit margins or top-level salaries to meet higher wage mandates. This last mechanism is one reason such policies get so much pushback from business, and it is particularly germane in an economy where income inequality stands at historically high levels. According to data from the Economic Policy Institute, the real earnings of low-wage workers in Alabama are down 6 percent compared with 1979, while those of the state’s highest-paid workers are up 17 percent.The forgotten recession that irrevocably damaged the American economy
The Week
April 18, 2016
Finally, companies can cut profit margins or top-level salaries to meet higher wage mandates. This last mechanism is one reason such policies get so much pushback from business, and it is particularly germane in an economy where income inequality stands at historically high levels. According to data from the Economic Policy Institute, the real earnings of low-wage workers in Alabama are down 6 percent compared with 1979, while those of the state’s highest-paid workers are up 17 percent.
Memphis Commercial Appeal
April 18, 2016
A report out this week shows the average annual cost for infant child care in Wisconsin is the 13th highest in the nation. The cost even outpaces tuition at the state’s four-year universities. The Economic Policy Institute report found the average cost for a year of child care for an infant in Wisconsin is$11,579, while average tuition at the state’s four-year universities is $8,406. That puts Wisconsin on a list of 33 states where infant care costs more than college.
Wisconsin Public Radio
April 18, 2016
In 2015, about 7.2 percent of young college graduates were unemployed, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington D.C. nonprofit.
San Jose Mercury News
April 18, 2016
Similarly, the Economic Policy Institute, the leading pro-labor think tank in DC, repeatedly advocates for a $12 minimum, not $15. It’ll issue statements sympathetic to actually passed $15 an hour laws, but it’s not the focus of their prior research. Jared Bernstein, Joe Biden’s former chief economist and perhaps the left-most adviser in the Obama administration, has written sympathetically about $15 an hour, but emphasized, “as far as we can see, no one is proposing $15 tomorrow. All the proposals we know of phase in gradually over the course of numerous years.”
VOX
April 18, 2016
Despite companies adding jobs, in the United States there are still 14 jobseekers for every 10 openings, noted economist Elise Gould in a blog post last week for the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank affiliated with the labor movement.
The Christian Science Monitor
April 18, 2016
The Economic Policy Institute (www.epi.org) has a family budget calculator that lets you enter your household size (up to two adults and four children) along with your Zip code to see how much you would need to earn to have an “adequate but modest” standard of living in that geographic area.
Des Moines Register
April 18, 2016