Media clips
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But that’s by no means the norm. Tom Hungerford, an economist with the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute who used to analyze tax policy for the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, says the vast majority of small business owners don’t make enough to clear the bar.
“So you’re just talking about the very top of the income distribution, probably owners of S-corps and some partnerships,” he says. “A lot of those are law firms, and I don’t think they have huge capital investments.” The rest in that bracket are mostly salaried executives, managers, financiers, lawyers and doctors — who tend to spend their personal income on themselves, not their business.
The Washington Post January 29, 2014 -
Rising inequality has obvious economic costs: stagnant wages despite rising productivity, rising debt that makes us more vulnerable to financial crisis. It also has big social and human costs. There is, for example, strong evidence that high inequality leads to worse health and higher mortality.
New York Times January 27, 2014 -
A major political clash over public-sector unions unfolded in Wisconsin, which imposed new restrictions on public-sector unions in 2011. The limits were blocked by the courts for part of 2012, but an impact was apparent.
Union representation among Wisconsin’s public-sector employees, including union members and workers who do not pay union dues but still enjoy union contract pay and benefits, dropped to 37.6 percent in 2013 from 53.4 percent in 2011.
The latest U.S. data suggest, “the erosion of public sector union coverage reflects the new anti-collective bargaining policies implemented in several states,” said Lawrence Mishel, president of the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Reuters January 27, 2014 -
In Wisconsin, union membership in the public sector fell from 53.4 percent in 2011 to just 37.6 percent in 2013.
“This suggests that the erosion of public sector union coverage reflects the new anti-collective bargaining policies implemented in several states,” said Lawrence Mishel, president of the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
The overall rate of union membership has been steadily declining for decades. The share of workers belonging to unions peaked in the 1950s at about 30 percent, and dropped to about 20 percent by 1983.
AP January 27, 2014 -
These 5 maps show unions are losing ground in the states
It’s no secret that unions — especially the public-sector variety — have had a big target on them in some states lately.Fifteen state legislatures in 2011 and 2012 passed laws restricting the collective bargaining rights of public-employee unions or their ability to collect dues from nonmembers they represented, according to an analysis conducted for the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank focused on reducing inequality and advancing pro-worker policies. The early 2011 fight in Wisconsin, under Republican Gov. Scott Walker, was perhaps the most high-profile effort. (Disclaimer: The author moderated an EPI panel for the paper’s unveiling.)
The Washington Post January 27, 2014 -
Here is a piece and chart quantifying that trend from Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute:
The minimum wage is 23 percent less than its peak inflation-adjusted value in 1968. This is despite productivity (how much output can be produced in an average hour of work in the economy) more than doubling in that time period.
The low-wage workforce has surely contributed to this rise in economy-wide productivity, since as a group they have far more education now than they did then. For the workforce overall, 37 percent in 1968 had not completed high school (or received a GED), which was true for only 9 percent in 2012 (the latest year with comparable data). We can drill down to examine low-wage workers, which we are defining for this analysis as those earning in the bottom fifth of the wage distribution.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution January 24, 2014 -
On this MLK Day nearly 46 years after King’s death, persistent discrimination means that black Americans are more likely than their white counterparts to struggle economically. And it’s much harder for them to pull themselves out of that financial insecurity. One prominent example of how racism affects black Americans’ economic prospects is in the job market, where they’re much more likely to be unemployed than white Americans.
Some of that has to do with lower rates of educational attainment and a lack of access to hiring networks. But even when you account for all of those things, “the leftover bit is the out-and-out discrimination,” said Heidi Schierholtz of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. There are a number of reasons why the playing field is so unequal.
The Huffington Post January 24, 2014 -
The effects of such a reconsideration could be far-reaching. If workers can benefit from contracts without paying even what it costs the unions to secure those contracts, those unions would suffer revenue declines that could render them toothless. Once their unions lost power, home-care givers — a group that is overwhelmingly female, disproportionately minority and almost universally poor — would be highly unlikely to get any more raises. Turnover rates within the care-provider workforce would surely rise.
The Washington Post January 24, 2014 -
“The continuing, record-breaking growth and strength of tourism in Los Angeles is a shining light for our economy, creating good-paying jobs for our families, benefiting local businesses, and generating significant revenue for the city,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti at a Jan. 6 press conference celebrating the record number of visitors.
But an analysis of U.S. Census data found about 40 percent of hospitality workers in Los Angeles County live below twice the federal poverty level, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
National Journal January 24, 2014 -
The reasons are many, among them the depth of the Great Recession and the toll of the president’s healthcare reform effort, which has dragged down assessments of the president’s competence and trustworthiness.
The most important factor, though, may be the widely held view that, statistics aside, the economy is struggling and many, if not most, Americans have not benefited from the lumbering recovery. Significantly, millions who want to work still can’t find jobs.
“People are hunkered down,” said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning Washington think tank that focuses on how policies affect low- and moderate-income families. “Very few are having an easy time of it.”
It is not unusual for widespread pessimism to fly in the face of upbeat economic news, even long after recovery has taken hold.
Los Angeles Times January 24, 2014