Indeed, between 1979 and 2009 worker wages increased by just 10.1 percent compared to an 80 percent increase in worker productivity, according to a 2011 report by the Economic Policy Institute.
The Huffington Post
May 14, 2012
There are still more than three job seekers for every available opening, according to the Economic Policy Institute, and more than 30 percent of the unemployed have been out of work for a year or more. Considering those numbers, it makes no sense to cut people off from unemployment benefits, which have ensured that millions of Americans don’t slip below the poverty line. According to the Government Accountability Office, 20 percent of those cut off from unemployment benefits by early 2010 fell into poverty.
Think Progress
May 14, 2012
It pays to be rich. Literally.
Since Bill Clinton’s first term, taxes have fallen the most for the wealthiest Americans. Federal tax rates plunged 9.4 percent between 1995 and 2007 for the top 0.01 percent of households, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Huffington Post
May 14, 2012
“I don’t think that kind of job creation is likely to happen anytime soon, but I’m all for setting ambitious benchmarks to get the unemployment rate down,” said Josh Bivens, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington group that says it focuses on the economic condition of low- and middle-class Americans.
“To me, the bigger issue is who has policies that are more likely to do that, and I don’t think Romney has identified any,” Bivens said. “Nobody is putting policies on the table right now that would lead us to a rapid recovery.”
Bloomberg
May 11, 2012
How does offshoring relate to America’s growing trade deficit? Both stifle job-creation, which in turn is affected by U.S. trade policy. Since 2001, for example, the U.S. trade gap with China has resulted in a loss of 2.8 million jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think-tank. More broadly, a widening deficit can act as a drag on the economy by muting the job-creating effects of consumer spending. Why? Because when people hit their local mall or big-box retailer, what they buy is mostly made abroad.
CBS News
May 11, 2012
In a new paper the Economic Policy Institute, a think-tank, calculates that chief executives at America’s 350 biggest companies were paid 231 times as much as the average private-sector worker in 2011
The Economist
May 9, 2012
The voluntary quits rate is an indicator of how willing and able workers are to leave one job for another. During an economic downturn, far fewer people quit because finding another position is tougher. In March, quits rose slightly. The number of quits was 2.1 million in March 2012, up from 1.8 million at the end of the recession in June 2009.
Quits increased in March by 75,000. They are up about 8.5 percent over March 2011 and registering the highest level since 2008. But voluntary quits are still 25.6 percent below their 2007 average.
As Heidi Shiefholz at the Economic Policy Institute points outs, however, the odds are still stacked against workers:
[T]he “job seekers ratio”—the ratio of unemployed workers to job openings—declined moderately to 3.4-to-1.
Daily Kos
May 9, 2012
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