Media clips

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• Are We Becoming The United States Of Crappy Jobs?

  Currently, 28 percent of all workers are in jobs that keep them at or below the poverty line for a family of four ($23,005 in 2011). And this is the way it’s going to be for at least another decade, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

  AOL Jobs July 23, 2013
• Trading Tax Write-Offs for Real Growth

  The “Dear Colleague” letter circulated by Baucus and Camp in support of their plan proposes a “blank slate” — specifically, that all tax expenditures would be repealed, unless they were demonstrated to advance one of the following goals: “(1) help grow the economy, (2) make the tax code fairer, or (3) effectively promote other important policy objectives.” A high bar that sounds promising in theory, but these vague criteria require some unpacking to be understood fully. For starters, Thomas Hungerford of the Economic Policy Institute rightfully adds the unstated but immutable Congressional prerogative, “(4) effectively promote important political objectives such as reelection.”

  The Fiscal Times July 23, 2013
• Our Refusal to Talk About Race, Class, and Justice Isn’t Going to Change

  Another study released Monday by the Economic Policy Institute reinforces the link between race and economic status. “Nearly half (45 percent) of poor black children live in neighborhoods with concentrated poverty,” study author Algernon Austin writes, “but only a little more than a tenth (12 percent) of poor white children live in similar neighborhoods.” Race and economic situation are linked, just as race and the application of justice are linked. It seems safe to assume, then, that blacks see entrenched poverty and low social mobility as symptomatic of racial bias, and whites to see it as warranted.

  The Atlantic July 23, 2013
• Economic Goals and the Civil Rights Movement
  C-SPAN July 23, 2013
• There Are A Lot Of Clips About How Broken Our System Is, But Here’s One That Offers Some Solutions

  If you’re like most of us, you don’t have profit money from large corporations flowing into your bank account like a fire hose. But some do — they make up a tiny percentage of our country, but they have most of the power. There are, however, ways to fix that.

  I know — nothing new there, right? What is new is a fantastic interactive website where you can start to figure out what happened, why it happened, and how we can fix it. Check it out: Inequality.Is.

  Upworthy July 22, 2013
• Will The McDonald’s Employee Budget Help Get The Minimum Wage Raised?

  Indeed, McDonald’s may have inadvertently triggered more support for a movement that has so far only had weak political momentum — to raise the minimum wage.

  “[The budget] shows that what they’re paying is something you can’t live on — that people have to have two jobs, and much higher wages in order to support themselves,” says Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute and a labor-market economist. “They demonstrated, inadvertently, that they don’t pay a living wage.”

  He says that the minimum wage should be at least 50% of the average wage. Right now, at $7.25 an hour, the federal minimum wage is just about 37% of the average wage, which Mishel said was $19.76 in 2012. (Some states set their own minimum wages, which can be seen in this chart.)

  If the minimum wage were bumped to 50% of the average wage, it would be $9.88, which works out to $20,550 a year before taxes.

  Forbes July 22, 2013
• What Happens If You Try To Live On McDonald’s Wages: A Budget

  So AOL Jobs decided to write up a second budget for a McDonald’s employee who is a single parent with one child living in Newaygo County, Michigan, which has the average cost of living for the country. The income numbers are the same, but the expenses are based on the “budget calculator” from the liberal think tank the Economic Policy Institute, excluding tax, but with the original budget’s ambitious $100 of monthly savings.

  As you can see below, our McDonald’s employee with a second job and one child will go into $1,548 of debt each month, or $51.60 a day.

  AOL Jobs July 22, 2013
• Fed Ponders Part-Time Shift as Obamacare Role Questioned: Jobs

  The high number of part-time workers is “primarily an issue of labor demand: we have a weak economy,” said Elise Gould, director of health policy research at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, which receives about a quarter of its funding from labor unions.

  Bloomberg BusinessWeek July 22, 2013
• There Are A Lot Of Clips About How Broken Our System Is, But Here’s One That Offers Some Solutions

  If you’re like most of us, you don’t have profit money from large corporations flowing into your bank account like a fire hose. But some do — they make up a tiny percentage of our country, but they have most of the power. There are, however, ways to fix that.

  I know — nothing new there, right? What is new is a fantastic interactive website where you can start to figure out what happened, why it happened, and how we can fix it. Check it out: Inequality.Is.

  Upworthy July 19, 2013
• What Happens If You Try To Live On McDonald’s Wages: A Budget

  So AOL Jobs decided to write up a second budget for a McDonald’s employee who is a single parent with one child living in Newaygo County, Mich., which has the average cost of living for the country. The income numbers are the same, but the expenses are based on the “budget calculator” from the liberal think tank the Economic Policy Institute, excluding tax, but with the original budget’s ambitious $100 of monthly savings.

  As you can see below, our McDonald’s employee with a second job and one child will go into $1,548 of debt each month, or $51.60 a day.

  AOL Jobs July 19, 2013