Media clips
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Though this year the sentiment has been that things are looking up for recent college graduates, there is still room for improvement, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank whose goal is to discuss the needs of low- and middle-income workers. In a new report, “The Class of 2015,” researchers at the EPI found that members of this year’s graduating class have better job prospects than classes that graduated from 2009 to 2014. But according to the EPI: “The Class of 2015 still faces real economic challenges, as evidenced by elevated levels of unemployment and underemployment, and a large share of graduates who still remain “idled” by the economy. In addition, wages of young high school and college graduates have failed to reach their prerecession levels, and have in fact stagnated or declined for almost every group since 2000.”
Boston Globe June 1, 2015 -
A recent report by the Economic Policy Institute found that foreign workers employed by Infosys and Tata in the United States are paid considerably less than their American counterparts, suggesting that these offshoring firms are using the H-1B program not to ameliorate a lack of skilled workers into the American labor market, but to cut labor costs.
Buzzfeed June 1, 2015 -
University of Oregon economist Gordon Lafer said that “proven statistical fact” is anything but. “There is no evidence whatsoever that right-to-work is a significant draw,” he said.
Lafer, who is also a research associate at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said while right-to-work states do tend to offer lower wages than states without the laws—around 3 percent lower, on average—the difference is not nearly enough to prevent employers from chasing even lower wage costs overseas.
CNBC June 1, 2015 -
Wage-earners also benefited, according to a paper by Josh Bivens, research and policy director at the Economic Policy Institute. He writes that criticism that quantitative easing exacerbated inequality is “misplaced,” especially considering what the economy might have looked like if the Fed hadn’t stepped in. “As weak as wage growth has been since the onset of the Great Recession, it would have been much weaker if monetary policy had been less expansionary,” he wrote in the paper distributed by Brookings. “Wage gains that are realized when expansionary monetary policy keeps unemployment lower than it otherwise would have been are not reversed if monetary policy does not contract before the economy is stabilized near full employment.”
Bloomberg June 1, 2015 -
The time Americans spend at work has sharply increased over the last four decades. We work an average of 1,836 hours a year, up 9 percent from 1,687 in 1979, according to Current Population Survey data analyzed by Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute. Some reasons include a more competitive and global economy as well as technology that enables people to work at any hour and location.
The New York Times May 29, 2015 -
In Silicon Valley, life is good. In Fresno, not so much. There is a big gap between the top one percent and the rest of California: The Economic Policy Institute calculates that the state has the nation’s fifth-highest level of inequality.
Christian Science Monitor May 29, 2015 -
Adjusted for inflation, the federal minimum of $7.25 is worth only 76 percent of the minimum in 1968, says the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a left-leaning advocacy and research group. It’s precisely this erosion of value that liberal and labor groups seek to reverse. EPI urges a $12 federal minimum in 2020, which (it estimates) would be worth, after inflation, 111 percent of the minimum’s 1968 purchasing power. More workers would be covered by the minimum than now — and run a greater risk of job loss. In 2020, the $12 federal minimum would cover 23 percent of workers, up from 4 percent today, EPI says.
The Washington Post May 28, 2015 -
Robert Scott, director of trade and manufacturing policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, disagreed. He called the IMF’s assessment “out of date and mistaken.” “The fact is that China is still intervening heavily in the foreign currency market,” he said. “It simply stopped engaging in traditional purchases of foreign exchange reserves held by the Central Bank.” What China has done instead, he said, “is switch over to a great increase of its holdings of sovereign wealth funds — government-controlled investment in private stocks, bonds, commodities, lands and real estate abroad.”
Voice of America May 28, 2015 -
An analysis of College Board and government data published Wednesday by the Economic Policy Institute finds the Class of 2015 will likely see lower wages than cohorts who graduated into better job markets for as long as 15 years.
Those choices put them at a lower rung of the career ladder at a critical moment in their careers, said the EPI’s Elise Gould, Alyssa Davis, and Will Kimball in the report. While young workers will likely move up the company hierarchy or move to more lucrative careers over time, erasing that initial wage disparity could take well more than a decade, they say.
Bloomberg May 28, 2015 -
Workers with bachelor’s degrees saw their average hourly wage drop to $29.55 in 2014, down 1.3% from a year earlier, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of Labor Department data. Those with advanced degrees saw their earnings fall 2.2% to $38.20.
Cities and states have been boosting the minimum wage, which generally lifts the earnings of the least educated, said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
Recent grads, ages 21 to 24, are making 2% less than they were in 2007 and 2.5% less than in 2000, according to an Economic Policy Institute report released Wednesday.
CNN Money May 28, 2015