Media clips
-
If you’re familiar with American history and housing policy, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. The explicit housing discrimination of the mid-20th century has left a mark—arguably a scar—on the landscape of American homeownership. The combination of redlining, block-busting, racial covenants, and other discriminatory measures means that, even now, a majority of blacks live in neighborhoods with relatively poor access to capital and mortgage loans. What’s more, this systematic discrimination has left many black households unable to afford down payments or other housing costs, even if loans are available.
And in the event that black households are able to save and afford a home, they aren’t as financially secure as their white counterparts. To wit, middle-class African-Americans are more likely to belong to the lower middle class of civil servants and government workers—professions that, in the last five years, have been slashed as a consequence of mass public-sector downsizing. All else being equal, a black schoolteacher who loses her job to budget cuts is less likely to have savings—and thus a safety net—than her white counterpart.
Slate July 28, 2014 -
US poverty (less than $19,090 for a family of three): 46.5 million people, 15 percent
Children in poverty: 16.4 million, 23 percent of all children, including 39.6 percent of African-American children and 33.7 percent of Latino children. Children are the poorest age group in the US
Deep poverty (less than $11,510 for a family of four): 20.4 million people, 1 in 15 Americans, including 7.1 million children
People who would have been in poverty if not for Social Security, 2012: 61.8 million (program kept 15.3 million people out of poverty)
Moyers & Company July 28, 2014 -
The long-term unemployment rate, which soared in 2009 to heights not seen since the Great Depression, is finally declining rapidly. The proportion of the work force that has been unemployed for at least 27 weeks has fallen to 1.98 percent, less than half the record high of 4.4 percent reached in 2010.
Since the end of 2013, “the long-term unemployment rate dropped 0.5 percentage point, thereby accounting for almost the entire decline” in the overall unemployment rate, pointed out two Federal Reserve Board economists, Tomaz Cajner and David Ratner, in a note published by the Fed this week.
As a result, for the first time in five years, less than a third of all unemployed workers have been out of work for at least six months. In the first six months of 2014, that figure dropped at the fastest rate in more than half a century.
“The improvement in the labor market is reaching the long-term unemployed,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “They are benefiting from the modest but measurable improvement in the labor market.”
The New York Times July 28, 2014 -
Evidence, however, tells a different story, namely that the economy is and has long been too weak to create enough jobs, even for experienced and skilled workers and for young people graduating from college. According to the latest federal labor data, there were still more than twice as many job seekers as job openings in May. That means that if all the job openings were filled tomorrow, more than five million of the nation’s 9.8 million officially unemployed workers would still be out of work, as would an estimated six million nonworking people who are not included in the unemployment statistics but who most likely would be working or looking for work if the labor market were stronger.
Equally telling, unemployed workers outnumber job openings in every industry. Even in health care, a field that creates many jobs, there are significantly more jobless workers than job openings. Such findings indicate that the problem is lack of demand for workers, not a widespread lack of skills. In addition, if there were a skills gap in the economy, wages and salaries would be rising in fields where employers had to compete for scarce skilled labor. Wages and salaries have long stagnated, even for college-educated workers.
The New York Times July 28, 2014 -
Their struggles point to a broader lack of demand in the labor market, economists say.
“These are the most technologically competent, recently trained skilled workers,” said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington economic think tank. “If they don’t have jobs at rising wages, then employers must not be desperate for them.”
Cody Hounanian graduated in 2013 from UC Santa Barbara and has a steady job as a manager at Whole Foods in his hometown of Santa Clarita.
He’s happy to be working, but he had planned for an entry-level position at a law firm — the first step toward applying for law school. But the competition was steep.
“There’s a lot of people fighting for those jobs,” he said. “I don’t dog on myself; I think I’m doing pretty good. But I could be a lot closer.”
Los Angeles Times July 24, 2014 -
Stagnating tipped wages lead to other inequalities, according to a report released this month from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. Tipped workers are more likely to be in poverty and on government services than other workers. The majority of tipped workers are female and over 25 years old.
When adjusting wages for minimum wage, the situation is more poignant.
“There are certain places where tipped workers are doing quite well,” according to David Cooper, an economic analyst at EPI. “It’s wages at diners in rural Pennsylvania that are really suffering from this policy.”
Wall Street Journal July 24, 2014 -
Dana Katz, 27, is watching peers from Pennsylvania State University’s School of Hospitality Management in State College pay the price for graduating with the Class of 2009.
“I have a lot of friends, countless kids who I graduated with, who should have been put into a better place out of school because they were really promising, but there was nothing available,” said Katz, who works at Kimpton Hotels in Washington as an assistant director of finance. “Kids got put into a bad place to start, and it’s been reflected in their career path.”
Job-market healing is under way, so the Class of 2014 may fare better than their predecessors. Today’s graduates “are entering into a stronger labor market, full stop,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
Bloomberg July 24, 2014 -
Studies have shown increased immigration is a windfall mainly for the rich. The more immigrants enter the country, the bigger the pool of labor to choose from. That’s great for top executives and anyone who owns a lot of capital, as the rise in labor supply, all else equal, tends to depress wages and therefore drive up profits and share prices. Needless to say, having more workers typically doesn’t bode well for those competing with immigrant labor, especially when unemployment is high amid a slow growing economy.
This affects both skilled and unskilled workers. The H-1B visa program that sets quotas for immigrants in “specialty occupations” has had a major wage-depressing and job-displacing effect on highly educated and skilled native-born tech workers, according to a 2013 report by the Economic Policy Institute.
Fortune July 22, 2014 -
Year over year, the states with the largest employment increases are Texas, up 371,000 jobs; California, with 356,400 more jobs; and Florida, which is ahead 237,500.
California’s unusual distinction — it’s a leader in both job gains and one of the states with the highest unemployment rates — shows how deep a hole the U.S. sank into economically in the last recession. When you lose a lot of jobs, it’s easier to show big gains on the way back, says David Cooper, of the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
By EPI’s analysis, 31 states still aren’t back to the employment levels they had when the recession started in December 2007. And given the growth in population since then, a healthy economy should have added 6.5 million jobs by now on top of regaining all the lost jobs, Cooper says.
“Things are getting better, but it’s taken so long for us to get there we can’t celebrate that much,” Cooper says.
USA Today July 22, 2014 -
Although California has now recovered all the jobs lost during the recession, economists caution that it is more of a symbolic milestone. As the state’s population grows, more people are entering the workforce. In July 2007, for instance, the state’s unemployment was far lower — at 5.4%.”It may have some psychological effect, but it’s an economically meaningless benchmark,” said Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
Los Angeles Times July 22, 2014