Media clips
-
In Wisconsin, the state with the highest annual African-American unemployment rate, nearly 1 in 5 black people are unemployed. The states with the next highest rates of black unemployment were Nevada (16.1 percent) and Michigan (15.8 percent), according to a new analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data released by the Economic Policy Institute on Thursday. The issue brief is a sobering reminder that black Americans continue to face troublingly high unemployment rates.
Huffington Post March 26, 2015 -
Unemployment among African-Americans in Wisconsin last year was the highest of any of the 50 states, according to a study released Thursday by the center-left Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. At 19.9% — or 1 in 5 working-age people — the black unemployment rate in Wisconsin is nearly three times higher than the highest state white unemployment rate (7% in Nevada) and significantly higher than the national black unemployment rate of 11%, the think tank found.
Milwaukee is merely the extreme of a national trend, according to Valerie Wilson, the author of the report. “Five years into recovery from the Great Recession, unemployment rates are finally nearing their 2007 levels, but the pace of recovery varies by state for different racial and ethnic groups,” wrote Wilson, who directs the Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel March 26, 2015 -
A standard can be achievable by all students if it is minimal, but it cannot be achievable by all students if it is challenging (“‘Proficiency for All’ – An Oxymoron,” Economic Policy Institute, Nov. 14, 2006). In other words, we can’t have it both ways, even though we continue to think we can.
Education Week March 26, 2015 -
According to Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute, their combined wealth in 2007 was equal to that of “the bottom 35 million families in the wealth distribution combined, or 30.5 percent of all American families.” By 2010, the Waltons’ fortunes increased while most people suffered. Their wealth was now “as large as the bottom 48.8 million families in the wealth distribution (constituting 41.5 percent of all American families) combined.” These are heirs, mind you. A single family holding more wealth than over two-fifths of all the nation’s families—a population equal to that of California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania combined. Perhaps even more instructive is what happened with the onset of the Great Recession, as Bivens noted, “Concretely, between 2007 and 2010, while median family wealth fell by 38.8 percent, the wealth of the Walton family members rose from $73.3 billion to $89.5 billion.” If the “wealth creating”
Salon March 26, 2015 -
While Edin and Schaefer address the growing advantage the working poor have over nonworkers, Lawrence Mishel, president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute, raises a different set of issues. He agrees with the general finding that “government programs — transfers and tax subsidies — have helped lift low incomes, and poverty, correctly measured, has fallen.” But focusing on these findings, Mishel argues, diverts attention from the more serious problem of “the failure of the labor market to adequately reward low-wage workers.”
To support his case, Mishel points out that hourly pay for those in the bottom fifth grew only 7.7 percent from 1979 to 2007, while productivity grew by 64 percent, and education levels among workers in this quintile substantially improved.
The effectiveness of government programs rewarding work, according to Mishel, means that in practice, taxpayers “are subsiding low-wage employers,” who, he wrote, “are not putting in enough relative to the publicly provided social safety net.”
A report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers, “The War on Poverty 50 Years Later,” which was published last year, provides support for Mishel’s case that falling private sector wages are a major factor in the problems of those in the bottom quintile of the income distribution. The following chart, Figure 1, shows that if there had been no new government initiatives after 1967, the poverty rate now would be higher than it was 48 years ago.
The New York Times March 25, 2015 -
Even the CPC budget’s massive increase in domestic discretionary spending is, as the Economic Policy Institute notes in its analysis of the plan, still below the historical norm.
VOX March 25, 2015 -
That historic shift has been blamed by critics for an estimated deficit in retirement savings of more than $4 trillion for U.S. households where the breadwinner is between ages 25 and 64, according to Employee Benefits Research Institute.
“You have this hole in what private sector workers have for retirement. We’re coming up on this place where all these people are not going to be able to retire,” said Monique Morrissey, a researcher at the liberal Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC March 25, 2015 -
Larry Mishel at the Economic Policy Institute finds that the skill-based technological change explanation for wage stagnation and high unemployment doesn’t track with trends like the declining wage premium for college, and so can’t be a driving force behind income inequality.
The Washington Post March 24, 2015 -
Over the years, the au pair program has been sharply criticized by think tanks and academics — even by some previous defenders, such as Edina Stone, who used to work for a sponsor agency and now runs a site for parents called Au Pair Clearinghouse.
The Washington Post March 24, 2015 -
The annual federal budget debate typically doesn’t excite many folks outside the Washington beltway. And with good reason – the Republican budget process is intended to lull the public to sleep by staying short on details and long on damaging provisions that will hurt low-income and middle-class families. But folks should pay attention to the debate because budgets have consequences – and if done right, they can truly move our country forward. The “People’s Budget,” which we both helped prepare, is a bold and responsible alternative to the Republican plans that take from working families while giving more to corporations and the wealthy.
The GOP budgets proposed in Congress would cut about $5 trillion over the next decade. The overwhelming burden would fall on programs that boost working families: education, Medicare and Medicaid, college aid, job training, medical research and rebuilding roads and bridges. Tens of millions of Americans would lose health insurance and millions more would lose food stamps or be priced out of college.
The Hill March 24, 2015