The massive loss of jobs during the recession relative to the monthly job gains is a key concern for economists on both sides.
Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, has calculated that the “jobs deficit” from before the recession is 9.7 million. At the current average pace of job growth, she said, it would take 10 years for the United States to return to full employment. Even if the rate of job growth were 350,000 a month, the job recovery would take three years, she said.
“Either way, it’s going to be a slog,” she said. “It’s just the hellacious recession that preceded this recovery that makes it look so bad.”
The Washington Post
August 7, 2012
For the first seven months of the year, the economy has averaged a gain of 150,000 jobs. This is just enough to find jobs for new people entering the labor market but not enough to give a boost to the millions of people who have been out of work for an extended period of time.
“This kind of job growth would be totally fine if we were at full employment,” says Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank in Washington. “But it is not what we need given the jobs deficit we have.”
The Christian Science Monitor
August 7, 2012
Meanwhile, the already anemic 80,000 jobs created in June was actually lower, with the government revising the number to 64,000. In normal times the labor market needs to create more than 100,000 jobs per month to keep up with the number of people who want to work and that number is much higher now given the trough we’re trying to climb out of. The Economic Policy Institute puts out this sobering statistic: At July’s rate of growth it would take more than eight years to get back to full employment.
Bloomberg
August 7, 2012
The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal-oriented research organization, estimates that raising the minimum wage to $9.80 per hour would generate more than $25 billion in consumer spending, create more than 100,000 full-time jobs and lift wages for close to 30 million workers, since raising the floor affects not only those who earn the minimum but also those who earn slightly more.
The Root
August 3, 2012
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions showed that the schools are essentially using taxpayer subsidies to finance their aggressive recruiting and regulatory manipulation. Based on the Senate’s findings, the Economic Policy Institute put together this chart showing that for-profit schools put more money into recruitment — and pocket more in profits — than they spend on instruction:
Think Progress
August 3, 2012
From NPR:
“This pace of job growth means two things,” writes Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the liberal Economic Policy Institute, who says the U.S. economy has a deficit of 10 million jobs: “We are not in — nor are we slipping into — another recession, but neither are we getting the kind of job growth that will bring down the unemployment rate. In other words, the labor market is treading water. This would be perfectly fine if we were at full employment, but with the unemployment rate now above 8 percent for 41 months straight, this is an ongoing, severe crisis for the American workforce.”
Minnesota Public Radio
August 3, 2012
The number of Americans working in low-wage jobs — those that pay wages equal to or below the poverty line — will remain steady over the next decade, according to the Economic Policy Institute, as CNNMoney reports:
Some 28% of workers are expected to hold low-wage jobs in 2020, roughly the same percentage as in 2010, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute.
The study defines low-paying jobs as those with wages at or below what full-time workers must earn to live above the poverty level for a family of four. In 2011, this was $23,005, or $11.06 an hour.
Think Progress
August 3, 2012
As with most Hispanics nationwide, Puerto Ricans here tend to support the president’s economic and health care policies. But Romney has support from Florida’s Puerto Rican business community, and Republicans are walking the neighborhoods in Osceola County on his behalf. Obama won the county handily in 2008, but unemployment in Metro Orlando among Hispanics was above 16 percent in 2011, according to the Economic Policy Institute — nearly double the national and state averages.
Associated Press
August 2, 2012
Some 28% of workers are expected to hold low-wage jobs in 2020, roughly the same percentage as in 2010, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute.
The study defines low-paying jobs as those with wages at or below what full-time workers must earn to live above the poverty level for a family of four. In 2011, this was $23,005, or $11.06 an hour.
The economy won’t support much growth in jobs with higher salaries, said Rebecca Thiess, policy analyst at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, who crunched government data to come up with these projections.
“Far too many economic pundits take for granted that the economy of the future will demand far greater skills and credentials,” she wrote in a recent paper.
CNNMoney
August 2, 2012
Many economists have expressed concern that median wages have stagnated since the 1970s, as illustrated in the following chart from the Economic Policy Institute.
Source: Economic Policy Institute.
For workers in the 10th, 20th and 50th percentiles, median hourly wages haven’t grown much at all since the early 1970s.
The Washington Post
August 1, 2012