The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions showed that the schools are essentially using taxpayer subsidies to finance their aggressive recruiting and regulatory manipulation. Based on the Senate’s findings, the Economic Policy Institute put together this chart showing that for-profit schools put more money into recruitment — and pocket more in profits — than they spend on instruction:
Think Progress
August 3, 2012
From NPR:
“This pace of job growth means two things,” writes Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the liberal Economic Policy Institute, who says the U.S. economy has a deficit of 10 million jobs: “We are not in — nor are we slipping into — another recession, but neither are we getting the kind of job growth that will bring down the unemployment rate. In other words, the labor market is treading water. This would be perfectly fine if we were at full employment, but with the unemployment rate now above 8 percent for 41 months straight, this is an ongoing, severe crisis for the American workforce.”
Minnesota Public Radio
August 3, 2012
The number of Americans working in low-wage jobs — those that pay wages equal to or below the poverty line — will remain steady over the next decade, according to the Economic Policy Institute, as CNNMoney reports:
Some 28% of workers are expected to hold low-wage jobs in 2020, roughly the same percentage as in 2010, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute.
The study defines low-paying jobs as those with wages at or below what full-time workers must earn to live above the poverty level for a family of four. In 2011, this was $23,005, or $11.06 an hour.
Think Progress
August 3, 2012
As with most Hispanics nationwide, Puerto Ricans here tend to support the president’s economic and health care policies. But Romney has support from Florida’s Puerto Rican business community, and Republicans are walking the neighborhoods in Osceola County on his behalf. Obama won the county handily in 2008, but unemployment in Metro Orlando among Hispanics was above 16 percent in 2011, according to the Economic Policy Institute — nearly double the national and state averages.
Associated Press
August 2, 2012
Some 28% of workers are expected to hold low-wage jobs in 2020, roughly the same percentage as in 2010, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute.
The study defines low-paying jobs as those with wages at or below what full-time workers must earn to live above the poverty level for a family of four. In 2011, this was $23,005, or $11.06 an hour.
The economy won’t support much growth in jobs with higher salaries, said Rebecca Thiess, policy analyst at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, who crunched government data to come up with these projections.
“Far too many economic pundits take for granted that the economy of the future will demand far greater skills and credentials,” she wrote in a recent paper.
CNNMoney
August 2, 2012
Many economists have expressed concern that median wages have stagnated since the 1970s, as illustrated in the following chart from the Economic Policy Institute.
Source: Economic Policy Institute.
For workers in the 10th, 20th and 50th percentiles, median hourly wages haven’t grown much at all since the early 1970s.
The Washington Post
August 1, 2012
“This whole notion that ‘we need to show capital markets we’re serious’ by cutting immediately is ridiculous,” said Ethan Pollack, a senior policy analyst at the progressive Economic Policy Institute. “Chances are, they’ll just factor in the job loss from fiscal contraction and get even more skittish.”
The Fiscal Times
August 1, 2012
That 41.5 percent represents nearly 49 million families, notes Josh Bivens at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. While median family wealth fell by 38.8 percent, Bivens wrote, the wealth of the Walton family members rose from $73.3 billion in 2007 to $89.5 billion in 2010, or about 22 percent growth.
Politifact
August 1, 2012
Ryan’s proposal is undermined is a new study by Economic Policy Institute economist Elise Gould and researcher Hilary Wething on the extraordinary extent of poverty in America and the appalling weakness of government efforts to reduce it.
The study shows how America has nearly double the percentage of its citizens living in poverty than do other wealthy nations. According to Gould, this directly reflects the relative absence of government effort via tax and transfer programs—like, say, food stamps—that would lift more families out of poverty.
“The relatively low social expenditures in the United States partially explain the high poverty rate,” said Gould. “When it comes to alleviating the effects of poverty, the U.S. could learn from its peers. … The U.S. only spends about half the average amount on social spending that alleviates poverty compared to other advanced nations.”
In These Times
July 31, 2012
From 2007-2009, during the economic recession, the BLS found that government regulation accounted for around 4,300 layoffs — 0.3 percent of all those who lost their jobs. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) noted that these numbers are especially significant when compared with the number of jobs lost during the recession due to regulatory failures:
The 4,300 figure itself deserves further context. It does not take into account any offsetting job creation that the regulations may have spurred, such as jobs created from the increased demand for the products from companies in compliance with the regulations. More broadly, the 4,300 figure pales in comparison to any accounting of the jobs lost in this period due to the regulatory failures that contributed to the economy’s financial crisis.
Media Matters for America
July 31, 2012