CNN columnist John Sutter called EPI’s Inequality.Is “the best online primer I’ve found” on economic inequality. He wrote, “It explains why inequality is a problem, how it was created and what might fix it.”
CNN
August 23, 2013
A new report from EPI President Lawrence Mishel and Economist Heidi Shierholz shows that the vast majority of American workers have seen their wages stagnate for a decade. A Decade of Flat Wages: The Key Barrier to Shared Prosperity and a Rising Middle Class is a comprehensive analysis of wage trends that shows that most Americans have not experienced real wage gains, regardless of occupation, race, ethnicity, or education level—including workers with a college degree. At the same time, corporate profits have soared, and the earnings of the top 1 percent have skyrocketed.
August 23, 2013
The Rev. Al Sharpton used EPI’s work in a Huffington Post column about the unmet goals of the March on Washington. After citing EPI data on persistent disparities between unemployment rates of blacks and whites, he wrote, “When such blatant inequality exists, how can we ever believe that our work is finished? Dr. King and the over 250,000 gathered with him on that historic day marched for jobs, and today we will continue marching for jobs as inequity persists. Millions of Americans are still desperately seeking work, and yet Congress will not support a jobs bill. So we march.”
The Huffington Post
August 23, 2013
In the Washington Post’s GovBeat blog, Reid Wilson reported on the latest findings from EARN. The report recommends that state legislators focus their attention on improving education, rather than cutting taxes to lure investment away from other states.
The Washington Post
August 23, 2013
Washington Post reporter Zachary Goldfarb looked at the challenges facing African Americans as President Obama prepares to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Citing EPI, Goldfarb wrote, “Fifty years ago, the unemployment rate was 5 percent for whites and 10.9 percent for blacks, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Today, it is 6.6 percent for whites and 12.6 percent for blacks.”
The Washington Post
August 23, 2013
EPI President Lawrence Mishel was interviewed on NPR’s “All Things Considered” about his new report, A Decade of Flat Wages. Explaining that wages have been flat across all measures, including education level, Mishel said, “Wages for those in business occupations have been flat for 10 years. Those in science, technology, engineering, and math—so-called STEM occupations—have been flat. It’s hard to look at the data and find that the real problem of wage growth is that people don’t have enough education.”
NPR
August 23, 2013
Analysts are split over whether the tax increases passed in January have hurt the economy as Congress barrels toward another round of fiscal fights this fall. ….
Thomas Hungerford, a director of budget and tax policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said the increases in income taxes have had “no impact” on the economy.
“I think any arguments that raising taxes at the top has probably lost some of its relevance,” said Thomas Hungerford, director of budget and tax policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
The Hill
August 15, 2013
Using that data and the numbers from the bureau’s report on job openings this past week, Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., showed there are 3.1 unemployed workers for every job opening.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
August 15, 2013
This is well-trodden territory. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that unpaid internships save U.S. companies $600 million dollars a year while locking less privileged young people out of the job market:
Unpaid internships, in particular, exclude students from poorer families who can’t afford to work for nothing for a summer or a semester, especially after they graduate from college with tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt. The children of affluent families, on the other hand, can afford to live in the most expensive cities in the U.S., such as New York and Washington, making contacts, building their resumes, and sometimes even learning skills, while their parents pay for their room and board, travel and entertainment.
Slate
August 15, 2013
In the first corner, we have Larry Mishel and Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute, which put out a shorter paper along similar lines in June. They argue that unique features of corporate governance in the U.S. have contributed to pay for CEOs that’s significantly above their foreign counterparts, and hold up the financial sector as an area where managers have commanded outlandish salaries out of step even with returns to their shareholders.
The Washington Post
August 15, 2013