Many of the pathways to wealth that were available for baby boomers or even Gen X are much narrower for Gen Z, says Kyle K. Moore, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
“We live in a country where wealth is really important to securing economic well-being,” he says. “There aren’t a lot of vehicles to build wealth.”
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The sentiment extends to retirement and overall financial happiness, Moore says. “If you talk to Gen Z about whether they are going to retire, a lot of them might laugh at you.”
Even if their parents or grandparents were able to retire at 65, many young people are witnessing the elderly in their lives struggle to exist comfortably.
“I think Gen Z and millennials have the lived experience of seeing parents and grandparents not having what they thought they would have and continue to work longer than they anticipated working,” Moore says.
CNBC
September 3, 2024
To buttress their arguments against Trump, speakers at the event said the former president named corporate lawyers to the National Labor Relations Board, which then “systematically rolled back workers’ rights to form unions and engage in collective bargaining with their employers” and sought to enact rules “aimed at overturning existing worker protections,” according to the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive research group that has received some funding from labor unions.
When Mr. Biden took office, however, his appointees made it easier for workers to form unions, EPI said.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
September 3, 2024
“People might have been attached to prices of things where they were before,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute think tank. “They have a meaning even if those goods are still affordable. There may be expectations about how much things are supposed to cost that haven’t caught up to reality, even if incomes have gone up.”
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Gould, of the EPI, said that a combination of factors — including states increasing their minimum wages and economic policies keeping the economy near full employment, including government spending — have allowed Americans’ purchasing power to come out ahead.
“Over the past four years, middle-wage workers have been beating inflation,” she said.
NBC News
September 3, 2024
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the average cost of infant care in Oregon is $1,135/month which seems like a bargain compared to the $1,900 per month that my family paid in Portland.
Oregon Live
September 3, 2024
Teachers are paid less than others in occupations requiring similar education, according to the Educate Maine report. The Economic Policy Institute found that Maine teachers made 24 percent less than comparable workers statewide in 2021, the 16th highest pay penalty in the nation.
Bangor Daily News
September 3, 2024
The additional rules detract from the intent of providing unemployment insurance, according to experts like Chandra Childers, senior policy and economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
“At a larger, macro level, it would allow the economy to work better, especially during periods of recession, because now people have money that they are spending,” she said. “The flip side of that is if you make it harder to access, restrict duration, or restrict benefits, then what it does is it makes workers more desperate. It is an effort, essentially, to force workers to take any job, so therefore, they are not able to bid up the quality of jobs.”
Alabama Reflector
September 3, 2024
“How is it possible that in 2024 we don’t have good information about this?” said Heidi Shierholz, former chief economist at the US Department of Labor. “And it’s because these surveys were put in place decades ago when these things weren’t as much of an issue.”
Absent better federal data, economists, as well as an independent federal watchdog, have warned that policymakers will be relying on inconsistent information when making decisions regarding federal benefit programs or evaluating labor policies, such as those seeking to clarify gig workers’ employment status. It’s also key to understanding how our economy works, economists say.
“It’s incredibly important to policymaking that helps dictate the success or failure of the economy as far as it delivers for the people who are in it,” added Shierholz, who is now at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Bloomberg Law
September 3, 2024
Using data from the Economic Policy Institute, Visual Capitalist recently created a graphic depicting the changes in real wages from 1979 to 2023 across all major income groups. These are the main results, as well as some key factors for why wages have changed over time.
GO Banking Rates
September 3, 2024
Many progressive organizations contribute to retirement funds for employees; the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) is offering a whopping 9.25% employer-provided 401k retirement contribution. Many organizations in this ecosystem are unionized.
Teen Vogue
September 3, 2024
We should eagerly fund these and all agencies so they can provide services for all—not run them to the ground, as has happened with the postal service, which, according to the Economic Policy Institute, has suffered from attacks by “anti-government ideologues and special interests [that] have long sought to privatize, shrink, or hobble” it.
Current Affairs
September 3, 2024