“There is a recovery. There are jobs. There is more income. There is some improvement,” said Lawrence Mishel, a labor market expert at and president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “But the improvement is obviously disappointing,” he added, a sentiment that many economists echoed.
The New York Times
September 28, 2012
The Economic Policy Institute has run the numbers and finds that President Obama’s budget would boost economic growth far more than Republican challenger Mitt Romney’s.
Obama’s plan would create 1.1 million jobs in 2013 and 280,000 jobs in 2014, while Romney’s budget would create 87,000 jobs in 2013 and lose 641,000 jobs in 2014, provided that his plans are deficit-financed, according to a new EPI study (pdf).
Washington Post
September 28, 2012
“Children from rich families have much greater access to higher education than children from low-income families, even when controlling for innate skills,” Economic Policy Institute researchers concluded in a recent report. “This educational barrier places profound limits on income mobility.” And in the tattered recovery from the Great Recession, wages even for college graduates have stagnated. Meritocracy is not only a solution to restoring upward mobility but also a way to fortify the bastions of privilege.
The Atlantic
September 28, 2012
In 1955, at the height of union strength, the wealthiest 10 percent received 33 percent of the nation’s personal income. In 2007, they received 50 percent, Economic Policy Institute data show.
Washington Post
September 26, 2012
“Children from rich families have much greater access to higher education than children from low-income families, even when controlling for innate skills,” Economic Policy Institute researchers concluded in a recent report. “This educational barrier places profound limits on income mobility.”
National Journal
September 26, 2012
It may be hard to imagine, but (we all hope, anyway) some day the recession and meager recovery period will come to an end. At that point, will the debates we’re having now about the economy become completely irrelevant? What will we have to fight about? Roosevelt Institute Fellow Mike Konczal and EPI’s Josh Bivens took this question on in the latest Fireside Chats episode on Bloggingheads:
New New Deal
September 25, 2012
Extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich would would boost the economy by an almost negligible amount, according to a recent analysis from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute — far less for GDP growth than continuing stimulus measures. Letting the tax cuts expire wouldn’t hurt job growth either, according to data from a University of California at Berkeley economist, cited by Mother Jones.
Huffington Post
September 25, 2012
But separate surveys by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and Generation Opportunity found little evidence that young people were going back to school when unable to land a job.
One deterrent is the rising cost of education and record levels of student debt. About two-thirds of 2012 college graduates left school in debt, owing on average $28,700 in student loans, according to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org.
“Young people dropping out of the labor force to go back to school would be a silver lining if it were true,” said Heidi Shierholz, a senior EPI economist, adding that enrollment had gradually been increasing for decades.
Reuters
September 25, 2012
Social Security remains most boomers’ hope for retirement income. On average, U.S. workers are beginning to take their Social Security benefits at age 63.8. That average fell by more than five years between 1945 and 1970. After that, though, the average has stayed fairly stable, noted Monique Morrissey, an economist who wrote “The Myth of Early Retirement” last year.
But Morrissey cautions against measuring “retirement” by Social Security take-up rates alone. Forty-five percent of eligible Social Security households continue to earn money from a job or jobs.
Buffalo News
September 25, 2012
“Who is expected to gain confidence from rising share prices? Presumably the dreaded one-percenters — the most likely group to personally own stocks. Or maybe we should expand that to the ten-percenters, who, according to the Economic Policy Institute, own 81 percent of our stock market.”
Fiscal Times
September 21, 2012