Media clips
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The triumphs & tribulations of a “pragmatic” progressive governor: Inside the world of Dannel Malloy
Many progressives have faulted Malloy for moving too slowly and cautiously on their issues, and the poor have suffered for it. Data from the Economic Policy Institute suggest that wages for the bottom 10 percent of workers have fallen from $9.51 in 2011 to $9.08 in 2014, while wages for the median worker have also declined, from $21.26 to $19.89.
Salon May 9, 2016 -
Elise Gould, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said Friday’s numbers suggested the economy needed to “see stronger wage growth for a sustained period of time before we can say we’re nearing full employment and a healthy economy.”
Politico May 9, 2016 -
The issue of wage stagnation could end up playing a dominant role in this year’s presidential election for the first time, according to Larry Mishel, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a pro-labor think tank. Wages and benefits have essentially flatlined or declined for four out of five Americans between 2007 and 2014, and except for a few years in the 1990s, they weren’t rising all that fast before that, Mishel noted.
“There’s been a series of decisions that basically all work to undercut the ability of the typical worker to get a better deal from his or her boss,” Mishel said. Among the policy changes responsible for this divergence are the gradual erosion of unions, the failure of Congress to raise the minimum wage and a weakening of overtime protections for many workers, he added. Globalization has also played a part, forcing U.S. employees to compete with workers in low-wage countries who are willing to work for far less. While joblessness has fallen, the economy is still far from full employment, which means workers have less power to bargain for higher pay, Mishel noted. Meanwhile, higher health care costs mean employers have less money to put into wage increases, even if they want to. “Firms are beseiged by pressure from global competition and from other employers. They don’t want to step out and provide higher wages until they have to,” Mishel said.
NPR May 6, 2016 -
A couple of weeks ago in this column, I discussed a report from the Economic Policy Institute, which argued that people finishing school this spring still face tough economic times. That’s certainly true for new high school graduates, whose unemployment rate remains well above prerecession levels. And it’s true up to a point for new college graduates, more of whom are being forced to settle for part-time or low-level jobs than before the recession.
FiveThirtyEight May 6, 2016 -
The weaker-than-expected job growth could be lead the Federal Reserve to delay raising interest rates in June. US labor participation also dropped to 62.8% in April, down from 63% in March. “In general this indicator has been on the rise, and hopefully this is just a one-month blip,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “Rising labor force participation is a sign that more people are getting off the sidelines and starting to look for work.”
The Guardian May 6, 2016 -
Recent trends in the participation rate have been positive, but they haven’t done much to repair broader declines that began at the start of the century and accelerated sharply after the financial crisis of 2008. “We’re digging ourselves out of that hole, but we’re still not there yet,” said Elise Gould, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Gould noted that although retiring baby boomers have helped to push the participation rate down, aging doesn’t explain everything. Workforce participation fell nearly as quickly for prime-age adults—aged 25 to 54—as for the broader population.
International Business Times May 6, 2016 -
The Economic Policy Institute‘s “Class of 2016″ report apparently offers grads even more grounds for optimism. “Thanks to the steady economic recovery, these young people are expected to do better than any other class since 2009,” Fast Company reports the paper as saying. On a less happy note, “wages for both high school and college grads haven’t reached pre-recession levels,” and this year’s grads will have to compete with a backlog of underemployed young people who are still struggling to get a foot on the career ladder due to the grim job market into which they graduated.
But the Economic Policy Institute paper insists that the remaining issues in the job market for young people have little to do with colleges inadequately preparing students for work. “Weak demand for goods and services, which makes it unnecessary for employers to significantly ramp up hiring,” is instead to blame for any lingering weakness is hiring, it insists.
Inc. May 6, 2016 -
All that is nothing compared to child care, though, the price of which has absolutely exploded over the past few decades. Research from the Economic Policy Institute shows that the cost of child care varies from $344 per month in the rural South to $1,472 per month in Washington, D.C. It’s also yet another thing you don’t want to cheap out on, as stories of babies being killed by neglect in day care are numerous and terrifying. Infant care is even more expensive—in 33 states and D.C., more than the cost of in-state college tuition. Try swinging that on minimum wage, on top of rent and food.
The Week May 6, 2016 -
This argument, critics of the program say, fails to acknowledge some of the reasons behind the superior work ethic of the H-2B workers. Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank in Washington, said H-2B workers are effectively “indentured servants.” Their employers control their visa status, and they often arrive heavily in debt to labor recruiters who connect them to jobs like those at Crystal Seas. Losing their jobs would likely result in deportation, leaving them unable to earn back the thousands of dollars they borrowed, Costa said. “American workers who have families here, and basic labor rights in the workplace, will find it difficult to compete with the high productivity levels of indentured workers with few other options,” he said.
New Orleans Times-Picayune May 6, 2016 -
David Cooper interview. Across the country, debates over raising the minimum wage are waging—and Washington, D.C., is no exception. But often ignored in these conversations are tipped workers—those in service industries who receive far lower minimum wages and make up the difference in gratuity. In light of two separate proposals to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2020 in the District, Kojo explores what the wage increase would mean for tipped workers—particularly those in the restaurant industry.
The Kojo Nmandi Show May 5, 2016 -
Raising the minimum wage in the District from $11.50 to $15 an hour could net 114,000 workers in the region up to $2,900 in additional wages a year, serving as “a powerful and much-needed step to ensure workers in the Washington area can achieve a decent quality of life.” That’s according to a new analysis from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute on the impacts of incrementally raising the minimum wage in the nation’s capital to $15 by 2020, which is being proposed both in a ballot initiative backed by labor and social justice groups and in legislation introduced by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.
WAMU May 5, 2016 -
The Economic Policy Institute says in a study released on Wednesday that those 114,000 represent about 14 percent of all D.C. workers and more than a fifth of its private-sector and nonprofit workers. Advocates have until July to collect more than 20,000 signatures in order for the measure to appear on the November ballot. Affected workers, EPI concludes, would receive $329 million in extra wages. David Cooper, a senior economic analyst for EPI, notes that under current law, the minimum wage will only rise to around $12.50 by 2020, so the $15-an-hour minimum would constitute a 20 percent increase over that. Demographically, almost 98 percent of those who would see their wages go up from the ballot measure would be older than 20, Cooper added, with three-quarters of them 25 or older. The majority would be women and approximately 80 percent would be people of color, he said. The report relied on 2014 data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (the authors cite a detailed methodology used in a previous study on New York’s minimum-wage boost).
Washington City Paper May 5, 2016 -
We were less surprised to find Josh Bivens of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute similarly bearish on the inflationary effects of the overtime rule, even when combined with the various minimum wage hikes occurring around the country. “A $12 min wage would increase the nation’s entire wage bill by something like 0.3 percent in 2020 when fully phased in,” Bivens emailed Morning Shift. “If that was fully passed through to prices we’re talking a single year where inflation was about 0.2 percent higher than [it] would otherwise have been, and then no further upward pressure. And if OT redistributed that much money to workers we’d be pretty thrilled, I think.”
Politico May 5, 2016 -
The Federal Reserve should not increase interest rates in order to deflate financial asset bubbles, two progressive economists argue in a policy brief released Thursday. Dean Baker and Josh Bivens’ analysis, “The wrong tool for the right job,” tries to rebut an increasingly common argument for a Fed interest rate hike that could hit Americans in their wallets. Baker and Bivens, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the Economic Policy Institute, respectively, marshal existing research to cast doubt on the idea that raising rates is an effective way to curb asset prices. And they maintain that since raising rates puts downward pressure on job growth, doing so to combat an asset bubble risks causing economic pain in the name of uncertain gains. Instead, they make the case for using targeted financial regulations to achieve the same goal without the unnecessary “collateral damage.”
The Huffington Post May 5, 2016 -
The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank affiliated with labor unions, says 13.5 million workers would be directly affected. The institute claims the Department of Labor’s lower assessment is based on outdated judgments about occupations and classifications.
Cleveland Plain Dealer May 5, 2016 -
Who are the unionized construction workers and who are the nonunion construction workers? Last year, the New York Building Congress reported that the construction workforce is about 40% white, 37% Hispanic, 13% African-American and 10% Asian-American. The assumption is that union workers are primarily white and nonunion workers primarily not. However, the unions point to a 2013 blog post by the Economic Policy Institute that claimed 21% of unionized workers are black. It was admittedly preliminary research, and a follow-up study has yet to be released. This is important because this is a winners-losers situation. Who will get the jobs if union labor is required on affordable housing, and who will lose jobs?
Crain's New York May 5, 2016 -
But a new paper from Josh Bivens, director of research and policy at the Economic Policy Institute, and Dean Baker, co-director for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, suggests that interest rates aren’t a good tool for popping bubbles at all.
“The housing bubble was an international phenomenon,” Bivens tells The Week. “You had a lot of different countries with quite different monetary policy tightness see very large increases in home prices. So it’s a little hard to say it was all about the interest rates.”
The Week May 5, 2016 -
Amid a national debate over the $15 minimum wage and two competing proposals for implementing it in the District, a new report found that 14 percent of the D.C. workforce would be directly or indirectly affected by such an increase. And of the estimated 114,000 people who would benefit, 80 percent are workers of color, according to the Economic Policy Institute study.
The report, though, uses the example of states that already guarantee the same minimum for tipped workers to argue in favor the single wage. “This is not some radical new idea. There are eight states that have already eliminated their tipped minimum wage,” said David Cooper, the author of the report and a senior analyst at EPI, adding that all but Hawaii have data going back decades. The report cites a study that showed tipped workers made 20 percent more per hour (measuring both base pay and tips) in states that had a single minimum wage in 2013, in comparison to those that used the federal tipped minimum wage of $2.13 per hour.
DCist May 5, 2016 -
The Economic Policy Institute said the rule would restore a protection that has been missing for some time. “It’s a very, very simple rule to implement,” said Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the D.C. think tank. “All it requires is looking at your workforce and seeing how you’re paying overtime. It’s something an automated payroll processing system could do in five minutes or a human resource manager could do in a couple hours.”
The Hill May 4, 2016 -
Supporters hope the new measure will help stem a decades-long stagnation in U.S. wages. Between 1979 and 2013, middle-income wages rose just 6%, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. Low-income wages did even worse, actually declining by 5%. Meanwhile very- high-income wages rose 41%.
Teen Vogue May 4, 2016 -
Officially, Trump has promised to rework the nation’s immigration laws into a system that requires companies to hire Americans first before considering foreign workers. Yet Trump has defended his use of temporary immigrant workers at his luxury Mar-a-Lago resort, saying he has “no choice but to do it.” Two House lawmakers who signed on to Long’s letter — Republican Reps. Renee Ellmers of North Carolina and Chris Collins of New York—have also endorsed Trump. “People who like him are seeing him as this restrictionist, but in practice, it’s really hard to tell what he’s going to be,” said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “But he can certainly influence the bill.”
Politico May 4, 2016 -
The Trump Company is now appealing that decision. If Trump loses again, his company is legally obligated to negotiate a contract. That doesn’t mean they will though. “If an employer is really hostile and determined to fight, they have legal routes that can keep the union from getting to the point of negotiating a contract for years and years,” said Ross Eisenbrey with the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
Public Radio International May 4, 2016 -
And while the economy has improved since the Great Recession ended, it’s still not back to precrisis levels. The class of 2016 will enter a job market that continues to suffer from higher levels of unemployment for young Americans and relatively stagnant wage trends, according to a study from left-leaning Economic Policy Institute last month. The percentage of recent grads who are “idled”—meaning neither employed nor in school—is about 10 percent now, up from 8.4 percent in 2007.
CBS Moneywatch May 4, 2016 -
If the last few years are any indication, the average Class of 2016 graduate will leave school with five-figure debt. That albatross likely will force graduates to accept jobs without long-term prospects for career or wage growth, according to a new study from the Economic Policy Institute. Analysts at the think tank say that despite the rosy overall employment picture, graduates actually face a tougher labor market than they would have before the 2008 recession. Degree-holders, they say, still contend with elevated levels of unemployment and underemployment, and a large share are neither employed nor pursuing advanced degrees—in other words, they are idling. “Although there have been small improvements, there is still a lot that’s problematic about this economy for young college grads,” said Teresa Kroeger, a research assistant at EPI who co-authored the study. “Wages are still performing poorly. And we see still disparities between genders and racial groups.”
The Washington Post May 3, 2016 -
“Well, only about 1.3 million people earn the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. That’s a small number, that’s like one percent of the workforce, but of course many more people earn a little bit more than the minimum wage and half of all states have a minimum wage above the federal level, so another way to think about it, the economic policy institute says that 53.6 million workers, a third of the labor force, earns less than $15 an hour.”
Here & Now May 3, 2016 -
If that happens, anyone making between $23,500 and $47,000 would automatically become eligible for overtime pay. In that case, 12.5 million workers may benefit directly, according to estimates from the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “All told, about 33% of the workforce will be eligible for overtime, regardless of their duties on the job,” EPI estimated.
CNN Money May 3, 2016 -
In fact, the labor-friendly Economic Policy Institute reported in March that Indiana lost more jobs proportionally in 2015 due to the U.S. trade deficit with Pacific Rim countries than any other state except Michigan. The EPI was looking specifically at trade between the U.S. and the 11 other nations that have signed onto the impending free trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The EPI also found Michigan had lost 214,600 jobs since 2011 as a result of U.S. trade deficits with those 11 countries, adding up to 5.12 percent of employment in the state. No other state came anywhere near those losses, but Indiana got closest, losing 103,800 jobs over the same period. That loss amounted to 3.54 percent of employment in the state, the institute reported.
International Business Times May 3, 2016 -
The biggest difference between schools I attended a half-century ago and schools I visit now is special education: It took a while for our country to grasp how to help students with extra needs. Many were amazed when Richard Rothstein and Karen Hawley Miles of the Economic Policy Institute revealed that about 60 percent of increased education spending between 1967 and 1991 went to special and compensatory education for students with disabilities or disadvantaged backgrounds. Rothstein and Miles spent months prying the data out of obtuse school budgets, and there has been little work like that since. We journalists mostly ignore special-education developments. But now, thankfully, we have another outpouring of surprises on how special-education money is being spent—and how little we understand it.
The Washington Post May 2, 2016 -
The gender “wage gap” has been growing wider and begins earlier than previously understood, according to a new study from the Economic Policy Institute. Young female graduates earn only 79 percent of what their male counterparts do – a decline from 84 percent last year. (Danielle Paquette)
The Washington Post May 2, 2016 -
There are similar trends at work in the United States, the Economic Policy Institute reports—including for young college graduates, whose inflation-adjusted earnings are lower than they were in the late 1990s.
The Atlantic May 2, 2016
