A 2012 report from the Economic Policy Institute showed that by increasing the minimum wage to $10 per hour, more than a half a million Massachusetts workers would benefit from the raise, and create thousands of new jobs.
Boston Magazine
June 13, 2013
Things are gonna get better. That’s at least according to blacks and Latinos living in the U.S.
Although blacks and Latinos were hit hardest by the housing crisis and financial downturn of recent years, both groups say they are happy and the economy will improve.
ABC News
June 13, 2013
These numbers mirror a simultaneous trend in eroding security among ambitious black Americans with shrinking access to middle-class jobs. It’s true that the country’s middle class is collapsing for everyone, but that trend is most profound among African-Americans. In 2008, as black folks flocked into higher ed, the Economic Policy Institute found that 45 percent of African-Americans born into the middle class were living at or near poverty as adults.
The Root
June 13, 2013
According to the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, CEO compensation at large U.S. companies was 243 times that of the average U.S. worker. At Whole Foods that multiple is 19, capping compensation for top execs at $705,000.
Wall Street Journal
June 13, 2013
The golden years aren’t turning out to be that golden for many current seniors and retirees, according to two reports that shed light on which older Americans are most likely to be economically vulnerable.
A new report from the Economic Policy Institute finds that black, Hispanic or female seniors, or people 80 and older are more likely to face economic woes than other older Americans.
“Public programs like Social Security and Medicare do a fairly decent job of keeping people out of absolute deprivation – absolute poverty – but there’s still a huge swath of the elderly that are living pretty close to the line,” said David Cooper, an economic analyst with the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal-leaning think tank, and co-author of the report.
NBC News
June 13, 2013
There’s nothing new or surprising about this chart from the Economic Policy Institute’s Heidi Sheirholz. It’s just a reminder that the U.S. labor market is still in very bad shape — despite recent improvements:
The Washington Post
June 13, 2013
The Department of Labor released its latest report on job openings yesterday, and while not much changed from last month, it was a reminder that the labor market is still pretty much murder. With more than 11.7 million unemployed Americans still out there, the government estimates that there are 3.8 million jobs to be had — a ratio of 3.1-to-1, as shown on this graph from the Economic Policy Institute.
The Atlantic
June 13, 2013
There’s a long way to go before the churn in the labor market looks normal. “The most striking aspect of the JOLTS data continues to be the low level of both hires and separations: Turnover in the labor market remains down sharply relative to before the crisis,” wrote Jim O’Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics in a note to clients before Tuesday’s data release. Voluntary quits are still 22 percent below their 2007 level, according to Heidi Shierholz at the Economic Policy Institute.
The Fiscal Times
June 13, 2013
Problems are also increasingly apparent on the demand side: high unemployment and underemployment rates among college graduates.
The New York Times
June 13, 2013
“No economic adviser is going to get the House GOP to accept a more sensible budget approach or help us generate jobs,” said Lawrence Mishel, president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “Hopefully, they’ll abandon the grand bargain approach.”
AP
June 13, 2013