New York Times columnist Paul Krugman pointed readers to EPI President Lawrence Mishel’s paper Regulatory Uncertainty: A Phony Explanation for Our Jobs Problem, which Krugman writes is a “thorough debunking” of the idea that economic uncertainty is holding back the economy. Krugman points out that the “uncertainty index” has fallen recently, with “no visible boost to the economy.”
The New York Times
August 9, 2013
PBS NewsHour talked to Heidi Shierholz about last month’s job creation numbers and the challenges facing our economy. Shierholz told PBS that the economy needs to add 300,000 jobs a month to get to a healthy labor market in the next three years. At the current rate of job creation, it will take at least five years to fill the jobs gap created by the Great Recession.
PBS News Hour
August 9, 2013
The Wall Street Journal talked to EPI Economist Heidi Shierholz about the worrisome proliferation of low-wage jobs and the effect of high unemployment on incomes. “There’s nothing putting upward pressure on wage growth,” Shierholz told reporter Ben Casselman. “Your employer doesn’t have to pay you big wage increases when they know you don’t have outside options.”
Wall Street Journal
August 9, 2013
On WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show,” EPI Economist Elise Gould talked about striking fast-food workers and EPI’s Family Budget Calculator. Gould pointed out that raising wages would not only help workers make ends meet, it would stimulate the economy, since workers would be able to spend more on basic needs.
WNYC
August 2, 2013
On Tuesday EPI and the AFL-CIO hosted Why Citizenship Matters, a forum on immigration policy featuring Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). ABC News’s Jim Avila wrote about Sen. McCain’s presence at the forum and support of the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill.
ABC News
August 2, 2013
EPI President Lawrence Mishel was on public radio’s “The Diane Rehm Show” on Wednesday to discuss recent strikes by fast-food workers and their demands for a living wage. “This is one of the most hopeful and encouraging things that’s going on right now,” Mishel told listeners. “We have in this country a broken wage-setting mechanism. Over the last 10 years, workers with a college degree, a typical median worker, someone midway up the scale, as well as low-wage workers, have not seen their wages improve relative to inflation.”
Diane Rehm Show
August 2, 2013
In the New York Times, Steven Greenhouse examined the disconnect between workers’ wages, which have stagnated, and the stock market and executive pay, which have both soared. “The real reason businesses aren’t hiring is they’re not seeing consumer demand for their goods and services increase,” EPI Economist Heidi Shierholz told the Times. “We need greater demand for goods and services. It is clearly true that if people receive higher incomes, that will help the economy.”
The New York Times
August 2, 2013
Recent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute shows that after four years of recovery, we’re only one-fifth of the way out of the hole left by the recession. At this rate, we won’t close the jobs gap until 2020. That’s too long for out-of-work Americans who continue to suffer.
The Washington Post
July 26, 2013
“There’s been a lot of misconceptions about the minimum wage,” said David Cooper, an analyst with the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington. “A good portion of those affected are teenagers, but it also affects a good portion of older people with families.”
The federal numbers report only those who make the exact amount of the minimum wage, Cooper said, but there are millions of other people who make just slightly more than that wage, and many of those are at least 20 years old and/or parents of young children.
A family budget calculator created by the EPI estimates that a single parent trying to raise one child in Palm Beach County needs to make $51,593 a year in order to achieve a “secure yet modest living standard.”
Las Vegas Sun
July 26, 2013
A recent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute falls in line with this view. A family of two parents and two children would need to earn $65,952 to live comfortable but thrifty lives in Pittsburgh. That total includes enough to pay the average rent here as well as the average cost of health care and childcare. It does not include such home staples as cable or Internet access because those are not considered necessary expenses. Still, two parents working full time for the minimum wage would make about half that salary.
“It’s still a relatively austere budget,” said Hilary Wething, a research assistant at the Economic Policy Institute and a co-author of the report. “There’s no emergency fund, there’s no retirement savings, there’s no college savings. There’s no going on vacation.”
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
July 26, 2013