“Using the deficit for something like unemployment insurance—that’s a multiplier—is a good thing,” says Josh Bivens, the director of research and policy at the Economic Policy Institute. “They’re shock absorbers, not bad things.” Unemployment benefits tend to get spent right away on needs like groceries, for example.
Mother Jones
January 29, 2014
Ellison personally handed the president a letter on the matter last month. Just last week, at an event hosted by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, he publicly questioned Jason Furman, the chairman of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, on whether Obama planned to issue the order. Ellison later criticized Furman for what he felt was an evasive answer.
The Huffington Post
January 29, 2014
During tonight’s State of the Union address, President Barack Obama will announce an executive order to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour for federally contracted workers, according to a White House statement.
Economists at the leftist Economic Policy Institute estimate “1 in 5 employees working for private firms for the benefit of the federal government are likely working for poverty wages.” The move comes as the president has continued to push Congress to raise the minimum wage for all workers, which has met resistance from Republican leaders.
Guests:
Ross Eisenbrey, Vice President, Economic Policy Institute (a think tank focused on low- and middle-income workers);
NPR
January 29, 2014
The increase directly and indirectly could raise pay for up to 28 million workers, according to estimates from the liberal Economic Policy Institute.
The legislation has received backing from 75 economists, but its passage remains a political long shot.
CNNMoney
January 29, 2014
Obama renewed his call for lawmakers to pass a proposal to raise the minimum wage for all workers to $10.10 per hour by 2015. A legislative increase would affect 27 million workers, according to an analysis of census data by the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute.
McClatchy
January 29, 2014
This year the White House promises todeliver the most interactive State of the Union yet. In anticipation for tonight’s speech, we’ve offered 17 charts of our own to better explain a core message in this year’s State of the Union: economic inequality in America.
IT ISN’T JUST WAGES, DIFFERENCES IN CAPITAL INCOME HAVE SKYROCKETED OVER THE LAST DECADE
January 29, 2014
Per the Economic Policy Institute, working women would be more affected by a raise to $10.10 than men. See the wage increase impact by gender here.
National Journal
January 29, 2014
Obama’s minimum wage order will cover people who perform services, such as janitors or construction workers, and make less than $10.10 per hour.
David Cooper, an economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington, said the announcement of the pay hike is “a good step going forward” but is limited in its reach.
“It’s not going to have the same impact that Congress increasing the federal minimum wage for all workers would have, and because it only applies to new contracts or contracts that are renegotiated, it may take a little while before current employees of federal contractors see the increase in their pay,” said Cooper, whose organization has advocated for a minimum wage increase.
In a call with officials at the Economic Policy Institute on Monday night before the announcement, Jason Furman, a top economic adviser to the president, told the group that the White House believes the executive action could impact roughly 250,000 people, according to Ross Eisenbrey, vice president at EPI.
USA Today
January 29, 2014
But the minimum wage order will also illustrate the limits of that approach. If Congress increases the federal minimum wage to $10.10 from $7.25 as Mr. Obama has sought, 17 million employees would eventually get a raise unless their jobs were eliminated and another 11 million would benefit indirectly as wage ladders were adjusted, according to estimates by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research organization. Mr. Obama’s order, by contrast, will affect relatively few at first because it will apply only to new or renewed contracts, and even down the road at most it might affect several hundred thousand workers.
New York Times
January 29, 2014
The rise in inequality has coincided with an enormous growth in the financial sector, which remunerates its employees extremely generously. Indeed, much of the shift in overall income to the top one per cent can be explained by the contribution of this one industry. “Executives, and workers in finance, accounted for 58 percent of the expansion of income for the top 1 percent and 67 percent of the increase in income for the top 0.1 percent from 1979 to 2005,” a 2012 paper from the liberal Economic Policy Institute pointed out.
The New Yorker
January 29, 2014