Media clips

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• If tech is so important, why are IT wages flat?

  In 2000, the average hourly wage was $37.27 in computer and math occupations for workers with at least a bachelor’s degree. In 2011, it was $39.24, adjusted for inflation, according to a new report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

  Computerworld December 7, 2012
• Paid sick leave a wise investment

  Currently, 40 percent of private sector employees nationwide cannot earn paid sick days, and lower-paid service workers in the restaurant and fast-food industries are particularly unlikely to have this safeguard. Food service workers, health care workers, child care workers and others who come into physical contact with the public or handle our food are among the least likely to have paid leave.

  Baltimore Sun December 1, 2012
• Median Net Worth In 2010 At Lowest Level Since 1969: Report

  The decline in wages may have, in part, contributed to growing wealth inequality, resulting in a member of the 1 percent’s worth equaling 288 times that of the median U.S. household, the Economic Policy Institute found in a report released in September.

  The Huffington Post November 29, 2012
• Obama must push for another extension of unemployment insurance

  What would happen if unemployment benefits were to expire in January? Earlier this month, the Economic Policy Institute found that the economy would save 400,000 jobs if unemployment benefits were extended through 2013. It’s not hard to see why — as with food stamps and other forms of federal assistance, unemployment benefits are spent on necessities like rent, groceries and fuel. They provide a direct boost to the economy, and provide significant bang for the buck; you get more than a dollar’s worth of stimulus (a multiplier of 150 percent) for every dollar spent on unemployment insurance.

  The Washington Post November 29, 2012
• State employees could be caught in austerity bomb’s blast radius

  Ethan Pollack, a senior policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, said it’s “tough to say” how fiscal cliff negotiations could affect state employees. “You’re talking about two slightly different areas of the budget,” he told MSNBC.

  “Usually, operations is funded internally by the state, and a lot of the stuff that the federal government provides is more for specific activities,” Pollack said.

  This means, for example, that budget cuts resulting from the fiscal cliff negotiations could have an impact on a state’s bridge-building project, but not on whether the state would be hiring new bus drivers to transport people along that highway.

  On the other hand, said Pollack, budget cuts to specific federally-funded projects would likely have an indirect impact on other parts of state budgets. “Money is fungible, and the more you try to crimp state budgets, the more [state governments] try to go for the low-hanging fruit, politically.”

  “Unfortunately, that tends to be public employees,” said Pollack.

  MSNBC.com November 29, 2012
• After election euphoria, liberals begin to worry about the political fights to come

  “There is a giant disjuncture between the concerns of the working class and the center of gravity for elite Democratic politicians,” said Lawrence Mishel, president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

  The Washington Post November 29, 2012
• Can Huge CEO Golden Parachutes Hurt You?

  One popular measure of executive extravagance is the CEO-to-worker pay ratio. According to a striking report by the Economic Policy Institute this year, among the biggest 350 U.S. firms (as measured by revenue in any one year) it was 18.3 in 1965 and 209 in 2011, based on the value of executive option grants.

  US News and World Report November 16, 2012
• Save the Payroll Tax Holiday

  Josh Bivens and Andrew Fieldhouse of the Economic Policy Institute estimate that the employment impact of rescinding the payroll tax holiday will be larger than the impact of letting all the Bush tax cuts expire.

  Slate November 16, 2012
• Failure To Extend Unemployment Insurance By End Of 2012 Would Cost U.S. 400,000 Jobs

  The Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, signed into law at the beginning of the Great Recession in 2008, provides assistance to long-term unemployed workers who have exhausted their state-level unemployment assistance eligibility. The program’s expiration is part of the looming “fiscal cliff” that hits at the end of the year, and though the fiscal cliff discussions have thus far focused on the Bush tax cuts, EPI found that the unemployment extension would provide a bigger boost to economic growth and create more jobs than an extension of the high-income Bush tax rates:

  Spending $30 billion on unemployment insurance extensions in 2013 would increase consumer spending and expand GDP by an estimated $48 billion, raising our $15.8 trillion GDP by roughly 0.3 percent. This increase in economic activity would translate into roughly 400,000 jobs. In comparison, continuing the upper-income Bush-era tax cuts in 2013 would cost $52 billion—nearly 75 percent more than continuing the UI extensions—and generate just 102,000 jobs, nearly 75 percent fewer jobs than the number created by continuing the UI extensions.

  Think Progress November 16, 2012
• Extending jobless benefits essential for millions. But chronic economic problems need fixes, too

  There is also one more stinger, according to the Economic Policy Institute. If unemployment insurance benefits are not extended, it will cost the nation hundreds of thousands of jobs:

  Spending $30 billion on unemployment benefit extensions in 2013 would increase consumer spending and expand GDP by an estimated $48 billion, raising our $15.8 trillion GDP by roughly 0.3 percent. This increase in economic activity would translate into roughly 400,000 jobs. In comparison, continuing the upper-income Bush-era tax cuts in 2013 would cost $52 billion—nearly 75 percent more than continuing the UI extensions—and generate just 102,000 jobs, nearly 75 percent fewer jobs than the number created by continuing the UI extensions.

  Daily Kos November 16, 2012