The salience of trade, in a state where unemployment had tumbled more than half since the start of the Great Recession, blindsided a Democratic Party that has struggled to find coherence between its labor base and its neoliberal leadership. It also worried Republicans, whose leaders and donors are resolutely in favor of free trade. “There has been a bipartisan conventional wisdom that the damage done to working-class jobs and incomes are simply part of inevitable changes, ones we cannot and should not challenge,” said Larry Mishel, president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “Even President Obama is blaming inequality problems on technological change, which is not even a plausible explanation for post-2000 America. People correctly understand that many elites simply believe that wage stagnation is something we cannot change.”
The Washington Post
March 10, 2016
The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, estimates that Michigan would lose 5 percent of its jobs if TPP were to take effect, the highest proportion of any state.
Reuters
March 10, 2016
In 2010, an analysis by the liberal Economic Policy Institute found that the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico after NAFTA was enacted led Michigan to lose 43,000 jobs. EPI said Michigan was the hardest-hit of all U.S. states.
The Huffington Post
March 10, 2016
Numerous studies show that Michigan, once the site of a booming industrial economy, has sustained major job losses in manufacturing and related industries as production has moved overseas. A March 2016 report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a think tank allied with the labor movement, concluded that the United States lost more than 2 million jobs over the course of 2015 to trade with the other signatories to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an international trade accord that was signed last month but has not yet taken effect. Michigan was found to have suffered proportionally greater job losses than any other state.
International Business Times
March 10, 2016
Many on the left have long voiced concerns about drug prices, but a number of influential think tanks now argue it is time for decisive measures to shrink the role of private industry and expand the role of government. Led by fountainheads of left-leaning policy thought such as the Center for American Progress, the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Economic and Policy Research — and championed most prominently on the presidential hustings by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—these groups variously advocate not just for price controls on drugs, but also weaker patent protections and shorter terms of intellectual property protection for clinical test data.
The Hill
March 10, 2016
Defined benefit pensions still more or less work, but they’re vanishing fast. But the 401(k) system is a blight on the face of the American republic. This set of tax subsidies (together with a few other similar programs) is suppose to enable people to invest for retirement, but as a new report from the Economic Policy Institute shows in crushing detail, it’s failing in every conceivable way.
The Week
March 10, 2016
By tying growth in the minimum wage to inflation, taxpayers save money and the economy grows. Estimates from the Economic Policy Institute show that a wage increase of $1.17 an hour among people earning near-minimum wages helps one million hardworking people leave government assistance.
Idaho Statesman
March 10, 2016
Both pictures clearly support the above assertions connecting anger to paychecks: decades of stagnant earnings for blue-collar factory workers and sharp declines in the real earnings of middle- and low-wage white men. I’m sure this isn’t news to many readers. The Economic Policy Institute has been tracking such wage trends for years. (It will soon be releasing its 2015 wage decile results; I’ve seen them and they’re really interesting, but my lips are sealed for now.)
The Washington Post
March 9, 2016
Americans aren’t saving much for retirement. Despite the tax advantages associated with 401(k)s and similar accounts, the average family has just $5,000 in retirement savings, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute. With the future of Social Security uncertain, and corporate pensions going the way of the landline telephone, personal retirement accounts were supposed to play a vital role in the future of retirement.
Looking across 401(k)s, IRAs, and other retirement savings accounts, the Economic Policy Institute found some pretty depressing numbers. Young families aren’t putting money aside for their future needs. And even those approaching retirement age have precious little stashed away.
The Boston Globe
March 9, 2016
The gender wage gap is alive and well (see Payscale’s Inside the Gender Pay Gap or the World Economic Forum’s Ten Years of The Global Gender Gap or the Economic Policy Institute report on Closing the pay gap and beyond). The problem has been attributed to numerous factors, including overt and subconscious bias in the marketplace, women’s inability to negotiate or failure to negotiate at all, women taking time off from their career to care for children or parents, and women selecting traditionally lower-paying roles and industries.
Time Magazine
March 9, 2016