Media clips
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Also, 74% said their retirement account has recovered from the financial crisis “about as fast” or “even faster” than expected.
And 55% of the savers in the Schwab survey said they hiked their savings rate in the past two years, while 70% said their 401(k) “is in better shape now than ever before.”
That’s a welcome trend, because many retirement savers are falling behind, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank.
The report, titled “Social Security is the Only Reason Most Americans Can Afford to Retire,” said that U.S. households in the middle-fifth percentile of income had $34,981 on average in retirement savings, in 2010.
That’s in stark contrast to the average $308,674 saved by households in the top fifth of incomes. Read more on the EPI website.
Want the bad news spelled out? Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, in Washington, said: “Other than high-income households, who receive most of the federal subsidies for IRAs and 401(k)s, virtually no one has enough savings to generate substantial retirement income.”
Wall Street Journal August 15, 2013 -
The economic crisis has precipitated a political crisis in many of these countries, most notably in Greece, where austerity and unemployment have fueled the emergence of the neo-fascist Golden Dawn party. Yet the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and the European Central Bank—known collectively as the Troika—are likely to continue demanding that periphery countries focus on debt reduction, said Josh Bivens, research and policy director for the Economic Policy Institute.
“The rate of austerity has slowed somewhat…[but] we haven’t reversed direction entirely,” he said. “We don’t have growth promoting policies going on.”
MSNBC August 15, 2013 -
“In hindsight, the organizers of the march were correct: Achieving rights without fully obtaining the resources to actualize them is only a partial victory. In this 50th anniversary year of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, we can best pay tribute to the march and all that it stood for by recommitting to achieving its unfinished goals,” wrote Algernon Austin, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy. The institute has issued a series of reports examining what it would take to achieve each of the goals of the 1963 March on Washington. Go to www.unfinishedmarch.com to read the essays.
The Washington Post August 15, 2013 -
Writing for the New York Times Economix blog, economist Nancy Folbre cited work by EPI Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Research Robert Scott on international trade and the job losses attributable to trade with China. “A growing body of economic research points to the adverse effects of lowered tariff barriers on manufacturing workers and their communities,” writes Folbre. “Whether or not the losers are beginning to outnumber the winners, free trade is increasing the economic distance between the two.”
The New York Times August 9, 2013 -
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman pointed readers to EPI President Lawrence Mishel’s paper Regulatory Uncertainty: A Phony Explanation for Our Jobs Problem, which Krugman writes is a “thorough debunking” of the idea that economic uncertainty is holding back the economy. Krugman points out that the “uncertainty index” has fallen recently, with “no visible boost to the economy.”
The New York Times August 9, 2013 -
PBS NewsHour talked to Heidi Shierholz about last month’s job creation numbers and the challenges facing our economy. Shierholz told PBS that the economy needs to add 300,000 jobs a month to get to a healthy labor market in the next three years. At the current rate of job creation, it will take at least five years to fill the jobs gap created by the Great Recession.
PBS News Hour August 9, 2013 -
The Wall Street Journal talked to EPI Economist Heidi Shierholz about the worrisome proliferation of low-wage jobs and the effect of high unemployment on incomes. “There’s nothing putting upward pressure on wage growth,” Shierholz told reporter Ben Casselman. “Your employer doesn’t have to pay you big wage increases when they know you don’t have outside options.”
Wall Street Journal August 9, 2013 -
On WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show,” EPI Economist Elise Gould talked about striking fast-food workers and EPI’s Family Budget Calculator. Gould pointed out that raising wages would not only help workers make ends meet, it would stimulate the economy, since workers would be able to spend more on basic needs.
WNYC August 2, 2013 -
On Tuesday EPI and the AFL-CIO hosted Why Citizenship Matters, a forum on immigration policy featuring Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). ABC News’s Jim Avila wrote about Sen. McCain’s presence at the forum and support of the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill.
ABC News August 2, 2013 -
EPI President Lawrence Mishel was on public radio’s “The Diane Rehm Show” on Wednesday to discuss recent strikes by fast-food workers and their demands for a living wage. “This is one of the most hopeful and encouraging things that’s going on right now,” Mishel told listeners. “We have in this country a broken wage-setting mechanism. Over the last 10 years, workers with a college degree, a typical median worker, someone midway up the scale, as well as low-wage workers, have not seen their wages improve relative to inflation.”
Diane Rehm Show August 2, 2013