Yet, fiscal doves continue to argue that it’s too soon to raise rates. On Twitter, Elise Gould of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute cautioned against scratching the itch — that is, moving on interest rates — too soon. “I don’t think the matter of time should determine it, the data should determine it,” Gould told the PBS NewsHour. She points to wages as one place that still needs improving. Average hourly earnings rose a mere 4 cents to $25.25 in November, following a 9 cent gain in October, and have risen by only 2.3 percent over the year.
PBS News Hour
December 7, 2015
The case also emerges against a backdrop of two decades in which black freshman enrollment at UT has remained essentially flat, averaging 4.3 percent of the class, despite the university’s efforts in recruitment, scholarships, holistic application review and other measures. Nor has the automatic admission law done much to boost black enrollment. Ostensibly race-neutral, the law “exploits the fact that Texas high schools are highly segregated,” Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, wrote in a post on scotusblog.com.
Austin American-Statesman
December 7, 2015
Many experts do estimate that gig work is becoming more prevalent, but the numbers are not entirely straightforward; the Economic Policy Institute’s Lawrence Mishel has argued in The Atlantic that the rise of Uber-like freelancing is actually overstated. At any rate, the Government Accountability Office has estimated that contingent workers, which includes temps, the self-employed, and on-call workers, accounted for about 8 percent of the workforce in 2010.
The Atlantic
December 4, 2015
Currency manipulation and unfair trade practices by China and other countries, not high wages, are to blame for the decline of U.S. manufacturing, according to a study released Wednesday by the Economic Policy Institute. The left-leaning Washington, D.C., think tank cited Germany as evidence that manufacturers can pay high wages and still be competitive. German manufacturing workers received hourly compensation of $48.98 in 2013, about a third more than the $36.34 per hour their American counterparts were paid, the study said. “The idea that high wages in the manufacturing industry are causing job losses is common, but incorrect,” the institute’s Robert E. Scott, the author of the study, said in a statement.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
December 4, 2015
For Josh Bivens, the Economic Policy Institute’s research and policy director, however, the discrepancy is not a mystery. The low official unemployment rate conceals the degree to which workers have settled for part-time work when they want to work full time, or those who have given up looking for a job altogether. “This is not a puzzle,” Bivens said at the briefing on Tuesday. “It is the evidence for why it is too soon to start putting the brakes on the economy.”
The Huffington Post
December 2, 2015
Landscaping companies, for example, were approved for more than 30,000 H-2 visas in the 2014 fiscal year. Yet Daniel Costa, a researcher at the Economic Policy Institute, which receives some funding from unions, found that over the same period, unemployment in landscaping was more than twice as high as the national average. “The problem with the system is that the H-2 workers who are coming in are not tied to actual, demonstrated labor shortages,” Costa said.
Buzzfeed
December 2, 2015
Southern California Public Radio
December 2, 2015
Ross Eisenbrey, with the Washington, D.C.-based non-partisan, non-profit Economic Policy Institute, disagrees. “I think this will get a lot of national attention,” he said. Eisenbrey’s studied the U.S. health system compared to Canada’s, which does have a single-payer system. He found the U.S. pays far more for healthcare than our northern neighbor. In part, that’s because of all the money our insurance industry spends on administration, management and marketing, he said. If Colorado voters pass this measure “costs would go down the way they have in Canada.” But he says there would be a different kind of cost: “I’d say the biggest problem is there are a lot of people could lose jobs.” “All of that marketing, advertising, accounting, all of the management of the various private insurance companies is done by people, who are employed to do it,” he said.
Colorado Public Radio
December 2, 2015
Exactly half of states have returned to their pre-recession employment levels, according to a report issued last month by the Economic Policy Institute. Additionally, employers planned to hire more new college grads this year versus last year, according to a spring survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
The Fiscal Times
December 2, 2015
He pointed to a study this month by the Center on Wisconsin Strategy and the Economic Policy Institute. That study found that some 700,000 state residents make less than $11.36 an hour, the amount it says is needed to keep a family of four out of poverty. That study found that the “13 states that raised the minimum wage at the beginning of 2014 experienced subsequent job growth equal to or better than states that did not.”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
December 2, 2015