Media clips
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“Given the track record of Foxconn on labor rights…we would all be wise to be skeptical until we see evidence that this is going to translate into something meaningful,” said Scott Nova, the executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium.
According to the University of Singapore sociologist Qi Dongtao [PDF], 73.7% of the Chinese workforce belongs to a single union: The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), which often appears to work against its own members on behalf of employers or the Chinese Communist Party. If Foxconn factory workers were granted an active decision-making role in their union, it would represent a significant break from national historical precedent—however, merely holding elections does not make this inevitable.
Isaac Shapiro of the Economic Policy Institute said two important questions remain unanswered: “One, what type of authority would these committees [of elected workers] have? Two, how would you ensure that they are truly independent of management and can do what they want without repercussions?”
MSNBC.com February 8, 2013 -
Did you know that about 26 percent of black retirees and 25 percent of Latinos depended on Social Security for 100 percent of their income in 2011? That compares to just about 10 percent of Asian retirees and 14 percent of their white peers. One of my best and smartest sources, Algernon Austin at the Economic Policy Institute, (EPI) has done the research. Something serious to think about this morning. http://www.pewresearch.org/daily-number/more-americans-worried-about-having-enough-for-retirement/
The Huffington Post February 1, 2013 -
Rather than represent an area of possible compromise, the chained CPI has inspired the stiffest opposition from liberals to date. The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank that Nather did not consult, released a letter of opposition to the chained CPI this past autumn signed by 250 Ph.D. economists and 50 additional social insurance experts.
Politico February 1, 2013 -
A newly-released analysis by the Economic Policy Institute shows that the super-rich have done well in the economic recovery while almost everyone else has done badly. The top 1 percent of earners’ real wages grew 8.2 percent from 2009 to 2011, yet the real annual wages of Americans in the bottom 90 percent have continued to decline in the recovery, eroding by 1.2 percent between 2009 and 2011.
Robert Reich Blog February 1, 2013 -
Here are three charts from the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. When you look at the level of poverty in the United States compare with other developed countries, it is not pretty:
Economic Policy InstituteWhen you focus on child poverty, you go from bad to worse:
Economic Policy InstituteAnd how much of an investment does the United States government make in reducing poverty, compared with other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries?
The New York Times February 1, 2013 -
Larry Mishel and Nicholas Finio have a fascinating little study out on the distrubutional consequences of the Great Recession and the recovery that they’ve given the somewhat curious name “Earnings of the top 1.0 percent rebound strongly in the recovery.”
That’s true. But as their table makes clear, the top 1 percent’s bounceback since the bottom, though quite robust, has been small compared to the initial fall. On net, the bottom 90 percent of Americans have faired poorly and the top one percent of Americans has fared even worse. The real winners have been the “9 percent”—the rich-but-not-too-rich humble workaday doctors, dentists, corporate lawyers, medium-sized business owners and so forth who don’t quite make it into the elite. I would add that this 9 percent is doubly blessed, since Obama-era tax policy has been pretty hard on the top one percent while largely sparing the 9 percent.
Slate January 25, 2013 -
“We have an unemployment crisis that is almost entirely due to a lack of demand in the economy,” Nicholas Finio of the Economic Policy Institute said. “In the current economic environment, the most important thing for job growth is fiscal stimulus, such as fiscal relief to states in budget crisis, infrastructure investment, and direct job-creation programs in areas particularly hard-hit by unemployment. Unfortunately, the labor secretary doesn’t have the ability to create fiscal policy, but the new secretary can be an important voice in pointing out that we still have a terrible unemployment crisis.”
Campus Progress January 25, 2013 -
“It’s mathematically impossible and an absurd objective if you’re trying to get there entirely with spending cuts from the starting point of our deeply depressed U.S. economy,” said Andrew Fieldhouse, a former researcher for the House Budget Committee who now works as an analyst at the progressive Economic Policy Institute.
The Fiscal Times January 25, 2013 -
But here’s what a new study from the Economic Policy Institute tells us about America’s education system: Every one of those common assumptions is simplistic, misguided, or downright wrong.
When you break down student performance by social class, a more complicated, yet more hopeful, picture emerges, highlighted by two pieces of good news. First, our most disadvantaged students have improved their math scores faster than most comparable countries. Second, our most advantaged students are world-class readers.
Why break down international test scores by social class? In just about every country, poor students do worse than rich students. America’s yawning income inequality means our international test sample has a higher share of low-income students, and their scores depress our national average. An apples-to-apples comparison of Americans students to their international peers requires us to control for social class and compare the performances of kids from similarly advantaged and disadvantaged homes.
That’s precisely what Martin Carnoy, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, and Richard Rothstein have done in their new paper, “What Do International Tests Really Show About U.S. Student Performance?” Carnoy and Rothstein dive into international standardized tests and compare U.S. performance, by social class, to three post-industrial countries (Germany, the UK, and France) and three top-scoring countries (Canada, Finland, and Korea).
The Atlantic January 25, 2013 -
Lower education levels also correlate with lower health, leading to a “health drag” on the economy, says Elaine Weiss, an education expert at the liberal Economic Policy Institute.
National Journal January 25, 2013