Media clips

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• The case against the Fed raising interest rates

  Economist Josh Bivens, research and policy director for the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, suggested in a blog post that a big reason behind weak inflation has been that workers have lost leverage and can’t demand higher wages like they used to, and that raising rates now might sap what little strength they’re gaining: The pressure to raise rates now, even in the face of a complete absence of inflationary pressures in the data, reflects a couple of strands of conventional thinking that are deeply damaging to prospect of workers’ wages rising anytime in the near future.

  Quartz December 17, 2015
• Fed readies first hike in almost a decade amid calm markets

  Still, opinion is not unanimous. Some Fed policymakers have said they worry the world economy is too weak for the Fed to successfully march off on its own. Labor groups on Tuesday said pockets of employment and wage growth overall are still too weak to warrant tighter financial conditions. “There’s no reason to think that the pace of economic growth today is excessive and needs to be slowed because of incipient inflation,” Josh Bivens, research director at the Economic Policy Institute, said in calling on the Fed not to hike. “Right now, lower unemployment that boosted wage and price growth would be an affirmatively good thing. Wages and prices are clearly growing too slowly.”

  Reuters December 16, 2015
• Friedrichs v. California Teachers Could Prevent Workers From Organizing

  As the Economic Policy Institute notes, public sector anti-discrimination and affirmative action policies, which the Center for Individual Rights has fought for decades, have been particularly effective in creating economic opportunities for women and Black people, “especially in contrast to the private sector.” Discrimination still exists everywhere, but it continues to be much more prevalent in the private sector where fewer protections – often won by working people speaking up for one another – exist.

  NBC News December 16, 2015
• Fewer American workers expecting holiday bonuses, raises

  A new survey released by Bankrate.com finds that only 22 percent of employed Americans expect a bonus this year, while only 12 percent are anticipating a raise. It’s all a part of the slow wage growth that has continued to plague the U.S. economy, Josh Bivens, of the Economic Policy Institute, tells Bankrate.“The headline unemployment rate is a notably rosier indicator than lots of other measures of labor market slack, including the really slow pace of wage growth the last 5 to 6 years,” he says.

  WTOP December 16, 2015
• The Make It Work Campaign’s “Throwbacks Are In” Series Exposes How Backwards U.S. Workplace Policies Are

  According to the Economic Policy Institute, it is more expensive to send a one-year-old to daycare for a year than it is to send a college student to a state school in 30 states. Furthermore, the Economic Policy Institute’s analysis also shows that childcare costs over 30 percent of a minimum-wage income in every single state. This partially explains why the number of women in the American workforce has fallen from 74 percent in 1999 to 69 percent in 2014.

  Bustle December 16, 2015
• Uber And Lyft May Need A New Category To Describe Their Workers

  Some remain skeptical, worrying the plan adds an unnecessary layer of confusion to an already complex debate.  “It’s an interesting intellectual exercise but it wouldn’t be wise to actually legislate on this right now,” says Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, a labor-backed think tank. He argues that policymakers should let ongoing worker classification disputes play in out in the courts before rushing to make any new categories.

  International Business Times December 15, 2015
• Fed Rate Hike: Four Dire Predictions About Zero-Interest-Rate Policy—And How They Fared

  But with an economy slow to recover from the worst financial shock since 1929, demand simply hasn’t been strong enough to push prices up, said Josh Bivens, research director at the progressive Economic Policy Institute. Laffer and other inflation hawks “wildly underestimated how far from full potential we were,” Bivens told International Business Times, noting that wage gains have only just recently shown increasing momentum.

  International Business Times December 15, 2015
• Nearly half of young millennials believe the American Dream is dead

  Young college graduates may be more optimistic, but their inflation-adjusted wages are lower. The Economic Policy Institute, in a recent study, found that earnings for young college graduates have steadily declined since 2000.

  Seattle Post-Intelligencer December 15, 2015
• Why the ‘Cadillac tax’ is such a tough pill to swallow

  But right now, what consumers are facing is more out-of-pocket exposure. As we approach 2018 — when the tax is supposed to take effect — employers have started shifting costs to their employees to avoid the tax. Elise Gould with the Economic Policy institute said as that happens people will start cutting back on all of their care, not just the wasteful stuff.

  “Some of that care is going to be really problematic if they don’t get and it ends up costing the system and themselves more money in the long run,” she said.

  Marketplace December 15, 2015
• Half of Millennials Believe the American Dream is Dead

  These findings come after the latest report from the Pew Research Center showed that the middle class was shrinking and no longer represented the majority of the U.S. population. The 18-to-29 age range saw the biggest drop in income status among all age groups since 1971, Pew noted, dovetailing with a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute that showed inflation-adjusted hourly wages of young college graduates in 2013 were lower than they were in the late 1990s.

  Fortune December 15, 2015