The left-of-center Economic Policy Institute has estimated that the expiration of the emergency jobless benefits program would reduce job growth by 310,000 positions next year because consumers over all would have less money to spend.
The New York Times
November 18, 2013
“It is absolutely clear that educational wage differentials have not driven wage inequality over the last 15 years,” said Lawrence Mishel, who heads the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal-leaning center for economic policy analysis. “Wage inequality has grown a lot over the last 15 years and the educational wage premium has changed little.”
… In coming weeks, Mr. Mishel and two co-authors, Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute and John Schmitt of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, expect to publish a study called “Don’t Blame the Robots: Assessing the Job Polarization Explanation of Growing Wage Inequality.”
The New York Times
November 13, 2013
Massachusetts had the highest rate of employer-sponsored health insurance coverage in the country during 2011-2012, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington.
The study found that in 11 of the past 12 years, rates of employer-sponsored health insurance have declined. Between 2011 and 2012, the national figure was 58.4 percent. In Massachusetts, it was 70.8 percent.
Boston Business Journal
November 12, 2013
One of the advantages of pervasive corporate culture is health coverage — and Connecticut ranks No. 3 in the percentage of non-elderly people covered by a employer-based health plan, a new report shows.
This state had 69.7 percent of the under-65 population covered by policies from a workplace in 2011-12, the report by the Economic Policy Institute shows. That trails only Massachusetts (71 percent) and New Hampshire (70 percent).
Hartford Courant
November 12, 2013
At the October pace of job creation, “it will still take five years to get back to the pre-recession unemployment rate of 5%,” said labor economist Heidi Shierholz at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
Los Angeles Times
November 12, 2013
To reach the 5 percent unemployment rate that prevailed in mid-2008 shortly before the bust, the country still needs to add 8 million jobs. Economist Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute notes that if payrolls continue growing at the same rate as they have over the last 12 months, unemployment won’t reach its pre-recession level until 2018.
CBS Moneywatch
November 12, 2013
The lapse in benefits is also expected to exert some drag on the economy. Michael Feroli, the chief economist of JP Morgan, estimates that the expiration of benefits will shave about 0.4 percentage points from first-quarter economic growth next year. The Economic Policy Institute recently estimate that the lapse will cut GDP by about 0.2 percent and cost 310,000 jobs.
The Washington Post
November 12, 2013
“Just surpassing the pre-recession level of employment doesn’t come close to doing it,” Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told TIME. “There’s still long way to go before getting back to health.” Had jobs growth been on track with population growth, women would have added over 3 million more jobs than what they’ve actually gained and men would have added over 5 million.
Time Magazine
November 12, 2013
Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, said the best remedy for the uneven job market is simply a stronger recovery.
Wall Street Journal
November 12, 2013
The Employment Policies Institute has received funding from the restaurant industry, and the think tank has sponsored some of Wessels’s work.
The study has many supporters, as well. Michael Reich, a UC Berkeley economist and director of the university’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, said he and colleagues reviewed the study, along with all others released by the institute’s researchers, to ensure they meet the university’s research standards — which he called “the highest in the world.”
“I think the report’s methodology is sound,” said David Cooper, an economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., liberal-leaning think tank. “Reasonable people can debate their conclusions and policy implications.”
Wall Street Journal
November 8, 2013