Media clips
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While the number of jobs added to the economy was disappointing and a drop from recent months economists says given seasonal factors, the average job growth of the last three months — 176,000 jobs — is probably a better measure of the jobs market trend.
“This trend is well above the roughly 100,000 jobs per month we need to keep the unemployment rate stable, so the labor market continues to very slowly improve, but it is a far cry from the 300,000 or 400,000 jobs we would need per month to get back to full employment in a reasonable timeframe, “said the Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think thank.
Philadelphia Tribune May 9, 2012 -
A fairer tax would not only be, well… fairer and simpler, but also could generate jobs, says a new report from the Economic Policy Institute. In “A Perfect Match: Coupling tax fairness with job creation for a stronger economy,” senior policy analyst Ethan Pollack, states, “Congress could simply use tax fairness reforms to pay for job creation policies.”
Business Finance May 9, 2012 -
“The improvement in the unemployment rate we saw in April was entirely due to people dropping out of — or not entering — the labor force because of weak job prospects,” said Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
The Washington Post May 7, 2012 -
“A few years ago you hardly heard about college graduates taking unpaid internships,” said Ross Eisenbrey, a vice president at the Economic Policy Institute who has done several studies on interns. “But now I’ve even heard of people taking unpaid internships after graduating from Ivy League schools.”
Matt Gioe had little luck breaking into the music and entertainment industry after graduating with a philosophy degree from Bucknell last year. To get hands-on experience, he took an unpaid position with a Manhattan talent agency that booked musical acts. He said he answered phones and looked up venues. Although he was sometimes told to make bookings, he said he received virtually no guidance on how to strike a deal or how much to charge. But the boss did sometimes ask him to run errands like buying groceries.
“It was basically three wasted months,” he said.
Mr. Eisenbrey said many companies were taking advantage of the weak labor market to use unpaid interns to handle chores like photocopying or running errands once done by regular employees, which can raise sticky legal questions.
The New York Times May 7, 2012 -
According to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, entry-level, college-educated men age 23-29 earned an average $21.68 an hour in 2011, a 7.6% decline from 2000. For women, the corresponding figure fell 6%, to $18.80. Men and women both now earn just a bit more than they did in 1989, when measured in 2011 dollars.
Wall Street Journal May 7, 2012 -
Those with only some college, or with high school degrees or less, are the worst off. But “every way you cut it — by race or gender, with or without a college degree — young people are just not getting the job opportunities they need, and it will have a lasting impact on their careers,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist who studies the labor market at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
The New York Times May 7, 2012 -
Other analysts, citing the distortions caused by the warm winter weather, said they expected job growth to rise again to 175,000 to 200,000 in the coming months — a pickup from the average job growth of 153,000 a month last year. But even that wouldn’t be anything to write home about, said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, who worries about the fresh crop of college graduates who will soon be entering the job market.
“Their prospects are better than for the class of 2011, but not by much,” she said. “It’s still very grim.”
Los Angeles Times May 7, 2012 -
On Wednesday, Paul Krugman swung through town to promote his new book, “End This Depression Now!” I caught up with him at the Economic Policy Institute to talk about whether Ben Bernanke could actually end this depression, the prospect that Mitt Romney could be a closet Keynesian, and what we’ll be worrying about in 10 years. A lightly edited transcript follows.
The Washington Post May 7, 2012 -
“The fact that the labor force participation rate continues to slide is largely due to the fact that, despite the labor market slowly getting stronger, it is still a very difficult environment for job seekers,” says economist Heidi Shierholz with the Economic Policy Institute. She says that many people who stopped looking for work won’t re-enter the labor force until job prospects improve.
AARP Blog May 7, 2012 -
The first finds that rising income inequality in the United States means that the benefits of better productivity are accruing mainly to the very wealthy. The EPI offers this startling nugget of data as basic food for thought: U.S. productivity grew 80.4 percent from 1973 to 2011, while average hourly compensation rose just 39.2 percent in the same period, and median compensation, which excludes outliers, gained a paltry 10.7 percent.
Reuters May 7, 2012