The New Republic
September 20, 2013
The New York Times
September 20, 2013
Though 401(k) plans (a defined contribution retirement plan) are supposed to build wealth, a new study by the Economic Policy Institute suggests that these plans are actually exacerbating wealth inequality by not adequately providing for most people’s retirement.
The report authors explain that the 401(k) began as a creative supplement to pension plans. But, it was never intended to be the primary base for retirement. Now, the report suggests, the plans serve primarily as a tax shelter for the wealthy. For instance, among America’s top 20 percent income bracket, nearly 90 percent have savings in retirement accounts that average $308,674.
BET
September 17, 2013
According to the Economic Policy Institute, last year three out of every four black children still attended mostly segregated schools that received significantly fewer resources than majority-white schools. In Pittsburgh, the number of black students performing at grade level in 2012 was 30 percentage points lower than white students; their graduation rate was 15 percent less than white students.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
September 17, 2013
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has studied the effect of a new minimum wage between $9.80 and $10.10 on the California economy, and estimates that it would directly affect between 2.1 million and 2.4 million workers. An additional one million workers would be indirectly affected by the hike, said EPI’s Doug Hall.
“The indirectly affected include those workers whose wages would be slightly above the new minimum, whose wages would also be slightly increased,” said Hall.
MSNBC
September 17, 2013
A story in the latest edition of the New York Times Magazine titled “No Child Left Untableted,” by Carlo Rotella, is getting a lot of attention in part because of statements made in it by former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein, who now runs Amplify, the education division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. The story is about a big push by school reformers to “transform” public education with technology, specifically, tablets.
In the following piece, education researcher Richard Rothstein analyzes what Klein said. Rothstein is research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, a non-profit organization created to broaden the discussion about economic policy to include the interests of low- and middle-income workers. From 1999 to 2002, he was the national education columnist of The New York Times, and he has written several books, including “Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right” and “Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap.” This appeared on the institute’s website.
The Washington Post
September 17, 2013
Five years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, President Obama is touting an economic comeback. But he says the country still has a long way to go to restore prosperity for the middle class. He warned Republicans in Congress not to impede the recovery by staging another showdown over the debt ceiling.
NPR
September 17, 2013
That’s worrying news for U.S. workers, many of whom are already hurting for a pay hike. The bottom 70 percent of the income ladder have seen their inflation-adjusted wages fall significantly since 2007, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, and that trend shows little sign of slowing down.
The Huffington Post
September 17, 2013
Lackluster job growth has outlived the downturn. A study by the Economic Policy Institute showed wages for all workers, when adjusted for inflation, grew just 1.5% between 2000 and 2007. But the last five years wiped out even those modest gains—the study found wages declined for the bottom 70% of all workers since the recession began.
USA Today
September 17, 2013
The U.S. Census Bureau at 10 a.m. will release its annual report on U.S. incomes, poverty levels and health insurance coverage. Then, the think tanks digest it, starting with the Economic Policy Institute, which will debrief on the report at12:30 p.m. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities President Robert Greenstein and expert Jared Bernstein will do the same at 1:30 p.m., and at 2 p.m., Brookings Institution follows suit.
Politico
September 17, 2013