Media clips
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Elise Gould, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based economic policy research group, noted that wages only rose by 1.6 percent for non-farm production and nonsupervisory employees over the previous year. “Ideally, we would want to see year-over-year nominal wage growth at 3.5 to 4 percent,” she wrote in an economic analysis released Thursday. She said the lack of wage growth, combined with the low labor force participation rate, is an indication the labor market has still not completely recovered from the Great Recession.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette March 13, 2015 -
“Right-to-work” laws deny unions the money they need to help employees bargain with their employers for better wages, benefits and working conditions. So it’s not surprising that research shows that workers in “right-to-work” states have lower wages and fewer benefits, on average, than workers in other states. Under federal law, no one can be forced to join a union as a condition of employment, and the Supreme Court has made clear that workers can’t be forced to pay dues used for political purposes. Right-to-work goes one step further and entitles employees to the benefits of a union contract — including the right to have the union take up their grievance if their employer abuses them — without paying any of the cost.
This means that if a worker who does not pay a union representation fee is fired, the union must prosecute that worker’s grievance just as it would a dues-paying member’s, even if it costs tens of thousands of dollars. Non-dues-paying workers would also receive the higher wages and benefits their dues-paying coworkers enjoy. Right-to-work laws have nothing to do with whether people can be forced to join a union or contribute to political causes they don’t support; that’s already illegal. The only freedom workers would receive is the ability to get something for nothing.
The New York Times March 12, 2015 -
As Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute has shown, real wages fell for virtually every American in 2014, save only the poorest, and presumably least credentialed, workers. Wages for people at the 10th income percentile actually increased by 1.3 percent, chiefly due to minimum-wage increases enacted by cities and states.
The Washington Post March 12, 2015 -
Ross Eisenbrey, vice-president of the Economic Policy Institute, says GM can increase share prices at the risk of everything else, or take the long view: investing in new equipment and the workforce. He says GM has to balance all of those things against a desire to reward shareholders.
Marketplace March 12, 2015 -
According to a report last month by the Economic Policy Institute, “real hourly wages have declined for 90 percent of the workforce with four-year college degrees since 2007.” It’s called wage stagnation.
The Washington Post March 11, 2015 -
The report, conducted by the Economic Policy Institute for the Alliance for American Manufacturing examined how a surge of illegally dumped oil tubular goods (OCTG) imports, primarily from South Korea, is flooding the U.S. market. These foreign steel pipes are priced below fair value and in deceptive ways are designed to circumvent international trade laws, according to the report.
Cleveland Plain Dealer March 11, 2015 -
In “Stop Currency Manipulation and Create Millions of Jobs,” Robert Scott at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) writes, “Rising trade deficits are to blame for most of the 5.7 million U.S. manufacturing jobs (nearly a third of manufacturing employment) lost since April 1998.” At Economy in Crisis, John Olen writes in “Lack of Jobs is Due to Our Trade Deficit“: Trade policy that encourages businesses to relocate production of goods to other nations without penalizing them for selling those goods back to this nation has resulted in millions of lost jobs. White House estimates show that for every $1 billion in goods exported, the economy creates 5,000 jobs. Unfortunately, that street goes both ways — data from the Economic Policy Institute shows that for every $1 billion in goods imported, the economy loses 9,000 jobs.
Huffington Post March 11, 2015 -
I am impressed that some well-informed and much-admired economists on the left, like Larry Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute and Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, are congratulating Larry Summers for changing his views. I hope they are right. So why am I not convinced?
Another source of my skepticism is the practical problem of which political constituencies Democrats must be prepared to abandon this time—working people or financial contributors. EPI’s Larry Mishel pointed out that if Hillary Clinton embraces the Larry Summers agenda this “puts her in a bind, you might say.” She would be going against Robert Rubin, the Clintons’ most influential advisor. The Goldman Sachs and Citigroup banker opened the Wall Street money spigot in 1992 by assuring bankers Bill Clinton’s presidency would be good for the country and especially good for bankers.
The Nation March 11, 2015 -
EPI chart cited.
The New York Times March 10, 2015 -
Right-to-work laws can also have the benefit of increasing face-to-face contact between union staffers and members, Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, pointed out. “There’s nothing they can do [about free riders] than try to persuade them,” he noted. But this extra effort also means that staff resources are sapped by trying to get everyone to pay, which means they end up “chasing after people to get their dues instead of researching, meeting with the employer, or organizing other units, doing all the things that the union would need to do to build strength.”
Think Progress March 10, 2015