Many left-wing writers and economists blame the North American Free Trade Agreement for opening up American workers to the whims of the global labor market, which has sucked out jobs and sapped wage growth. The result of NAFTA “has been 20 years of stagnant wages and the upward redistribution of income, wealth and political power,” writes Jeff Faux at the Economic Policy Institute.
The Atlantic
March 9, 2016
The Economic Policy Institute, a D.C. think tank affiliated with organized labor, estimated in 2014that since 2001 Chinese workers had taken more than 3 million jobs from Americans. Those in favor of free trade argue that commerce between countries ultimately increases economic growth and helps lift the country as a whole, but few dispute that free trade has also negatively impacted parts of the country that relied heavily on manufacturing jobs.
Yahoo News
March 9, 2016
Over the last three decades, high-profile critics of such trade deals—from Sanders to Pat Buchanan to Ross Perot to now Trump—have argued that by reducing U.S. tariffs on goods from countries that have lower wage, labor, environmental and human rights standards, such trade deals would prompt manufacturers to move production facilities abroad in an effort to cut costs and boost profits. Those critics’ arguments have been buttressed by the export deficits that accompanied the trade agreements—deficits that have together resulted in the loss of roughly 4 million U.S. jobs, according to estimates from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
International Business Times
March 9, 2016
Economists at the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute have long pointed to the negative effects of free trade, with massive loss of jobs to Mexico and China.
Forbes
March 9, 2016
That’s why a group of us in Congress have introduced the Seniors and Veterans Emergency Benefits Act (SAVE Benefits Act). This bill would give a onetime payment of $581 to those people who aren’t receiving a COLA this year—a raise equal to the 3.9 percent pay increase the top CEOs received. Social Security payments average only about $1,340 a month—and millions of seniors who rely on those checks are barely scraping by. A $581 increase could cover almost three months of groceries for seniors or a year’s worth of out-of-pocket costs on critical prescription drugs for the average Medicare beneficiary. That $50 a month is worth a heck of a lot to the 70 million Americans who would have just a little more in their pockets as a result of this bill. In fact, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, that little boost could lift more than one million Americans out of poverty.
The Nation
March 8, 2016
Sanders’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment nor provide the data Sanders referenced in the debate. “Yeah, a 50 percent cut could have happened to a particular plant or potentially some small, very disaggregated sub-industry, I guess, but the story of overall wages in manufacturing … is just pretty flat,” Josh Bivens, director of research and policy at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote in an email. More bluntly: “The sentiment is correct. The numbers are not,” said Robert Scott, director of trade and manufacturing research at the institute.
The Washington Post
March 8, 2016
Sanders has cited research from the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute showing that more than 700,000 jobs have been lost in the wake of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.
International Business Times
March 8, 2016
The pay gap between whites and Hispanics has not changed during those years either, Valerie Wilson, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told HuffPost. “The gaps are really persistent,” she said.
The Huffington Post
March 8, 2016
If you steal $600 worth of merchandise, the police will probably come after you. But if your employer steals $600 of your wages, you are likely to never see that money again. And chances are high that you have experienced wage theft yourself, whether you work a 9-to-5 job or are an independent contractor. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that wage theft is costing US workers $50 billion a year.
VOX
March 8, 2016
The American nest egg is facing financial extinction. Aging workers who thought they could relax in retirement face unprecedented economic stressors, according to new analysis of retirement wealth. Data from Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reveals retirement wealth is turning into retirement poverty for a growing portion of working households. The labor-focused think tank finds that “retirement wealth has not grown fast enough to keep pace with an aging population and other changes.” While retirement wealth has risen in absolute terms since the 1990s, EPI observes that the growth trend has lagged behind changes in the aging population’s size and needs.
The Nation
March 8, 2016