Josh Bivens at the Economic Policy Institute, who has done lots of smart analysis of EPA rules in the past, has done a deep dive on the employment effects of the CPP. His methodology is fairly simple. He takes the effects of the CPP on electrical generation (as projected by EPA in its Regulatory Impact Analysis) and calculates their employment effects. More specifically, he calculates their direct effects, indirect effects, and price effects on employment.
The direct effects are changes in employment in industries directly involved in electricity, which EPA already calculates in its RIA. Bivens then takes those numbers and calculates their indirect effects on “supplier jobs, induced (or re-spending) jobs, and public-sector jobs.” The sum of these three is the “multiplier effect” of the direct employment changes. The price effects trace the impact of higher electricity prices.
VOX
June 10, 2015
So what might this new overtime rule mean? It is difficult to say exactly how many workers will be affected, but the labor-aligned Economic Policy Institute estimates that a revision of the FLSA along these lines would likely impact between 5 and 10 million workers. For an optimistic interpretation of a more stringent overtime rule, I recommend reading EPI’s report on overtime from last spring, by Jared Diamond and Ross Eisenbrey.
National Review
June 10, 2015
By 2020, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed Clean Power Plan will create nearly 100,000 more jobs than are lost, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank. The report’s initial estimates are higher than some similar studies; however, the institute found that the job impacts of the Clean Power Plan, which limits carbon emissions from power plants, would not last, and would become “almost completely insignificant by 2030.”
But job growth analysis is incredibly complicated. Josh Bivens, research and policy director at the Economic Policy Institute and the report’s author, explained that measuring such things as doctor’s visits could end up on both sides of the ledger. “Induced losses include fewer visits to doctors offices from people who’ve lost jobs, incomes, and insurance, but also include increased visits to doctors offices from people who have gained jobs, incomes, and insurance coverage,” he told ThinkProgress in an email.
Think Progress
June 10, 2015
You took the same classes and aced the same midterms and smiled for the same picturesque photos at graduation. But according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute, the boys who stood next to you at Commencement are slated to earn $3 more per hour at work than you do.
Elle
June 9, 2015
Many policy experts believe that both the purported harms and gains from the TPP are being overstated in a heated debate. “There are going to be very few jobs that will be affected,” the Economic Policy Institute’s Robert Scott, who opposes the deal, told my former colleague Danny Vinik. Even legislators from the most export-driven districts remain unconvinced on the deal. According to a new Wall Street Journal analysis, “in the 10 districts with the biggest export growth since 2006, only three of the representatives” are currently backing the TPP.
The New Republic
June 9, 2015
Ross Eisenbrey, vice president at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute who pitched the changes to the White House in 2013, said updating the rules was necessary to reflect changes in the workforce. “It would provide a better work-family balance for millions of workers, giving some higher pay for working overtime and others reduced hours without any reduction in pay,” he said.
Reuters
June 9, 2015
Sanders pointed to an Economic Policy Institute study he requested that showed the real unemployment rate for black high school graduates, ages 17 to 20, was more than 51 percent during the 12 months ending in March. The jobless rate for Hispanics in that age group was just under 34 percent.
The Hill
June 9, 2015
Employers can garner huge benefits by avoiding “employment-related obligations,” says an upcoming report by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan, labor-affiliated think tank. They “save on labor and administration costs and gain advantage over competitors.” They avoid paying the employers’ half of Social Security and Medicare taxes (workers must pay instead), and unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation taxes. They even can circumvent immigration enforcement — employers can’t be charged with hiring undocumented workers if they don’t have any employees.
Los Angeles Times
June 8, 2015
In the lower-paid, less competitive civil-service positions—in the Post Office, for example, or in middle-management office jobs—blacks have climbed the color-blind rungs of the civil-service hiring ladder with great success, according to Valerie Wilson, who heads up the Race, Ethnicity, and Economy program at the Economic Policy Institute. So much so, in fact, that as The New York Times reported just last week, cuts to government jobs and reductions of public-sector positions hit African Americans the hardest among all groups.
The Atlantic
June 8, 2015
Discussing the use of skilled foreign workers in the U.S., with Daniel Costa, Economic policy institute, and Cyrus Mehta, immigration attorney.
CNBC
June 8, 2015