Media clips
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But Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, is among those who is happy Metro has strong unions. “If you left it to management, if you didn’t have a union to push and protect the workers, God only knows how bad the system would be,” Eisenbrey said. Perhaps it’s because Americans have been taught for decades now to find fault with unions and workers rather than corporate and government managers. Perhaps it’s because of the American dream teaches that everyone can be a millionaire, and if you’re not you’re not really trying. But every worker should insist on adequate retirement benefits. The country’s already headed toward a crisis as people cease working without enough savings to last them through old age, Eisenbrey said. “The thought that people don’t need a pension—it’s crazy,” Eisenbrey says. “Of course they need a pension. Or if they don’t have a pension, they need the employer to put in something on the order of 9 to 12 percent a year into their 401 (k) plan – which is probably more than what WMATA is putting into their pension plan every year.”
The Washington Post April 29, 2016 -
Pay disparities between men and women start earlier in their careers than frequently assumed and have significantly widened for young workers in the past year, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute. Paychecks for young female college graduates are about 79 percent as large as those of their male peers, the think tank found—a serious drop from 84 percent last year.
Young men with a college degree make an average hourly wage of $20.94 right after graduation, according to the EPI figures, compared with the average hourly wage of $16.58 for women. That’s a $9,000 annual difference. Teresa Kroeger, who co-authored the paper, said rising wages for men at the top of the income distribution appear to be exacerbating the chasm. “We suspect this is following the overall trend of the economy,” she said. Men tend to dominate the workforce in the highest-paid career fields, Kroeger said—technology and finance, for example. These fields have enjoyed more wage growth over the past year as pay in others has stagnated. That may explain part of the recently ballooning gap.
The Washington Post April 29, 2016 -
The Fed next meets in June, and its most recent forecast indicated plans for two small 0.25 percentage point rate hikes this year. “Today’s anemic growth numbers fully justify the Federal Reserve’s decision this week to not further increase short-term interest rates,” said Josh Bivens, research and policy director for the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank focused on the needs of low- and middle-income workers.
Los Angeles Times April 29, 2016 -
On many measures, both groups are among the nation’s most economically strained. Hourly wages for white men with only a high school education, adjusted for inflation, were virtually no higher in 2011 than in 1989, and actually lower than in 2000, according to calculations by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think-tank. Meanwhile, since 2000, as the EPI noted recently, inflation-adjusted wages have remained stagnant for young college graduates, and declined slightly for young workers with only a high-school degree.
The Atlantic April 29, 2016 -
WP’s Danielle Paquette: “Pay disparities between men and women start earlier in their careers than frequently assumed and have significantly widened for young workers in the past year, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute. Paychecks for young female college graduates are about 79 percent as large as those of their male peers, the think tank found—a serious drop from 84 percent last year.
Politico April 29, 2016 -
The results could be eye-popping, based on figures produced for Variety by two firms that track executive and worker pay. The ratio of CEO to median worker pay stood at 20-to-1 in 1965, and had ballooned to more than 300-to-1 by 2014, according to the labor-affiliated Economic Policy Institute. But the prominent companies measured by compensation research firms PayScale and Equilar are paying the boss much, much more than the average worker. Some of the ratios of CEO-to-worker pay are as high as 900-to-1.
Variety April 28, 2016 -
American women who are about to graduate from college might want to keep this sobering fact in mind: When they enter the workforce, they’re likely to make a lot less money than the guys sitting next to them at graduation, according to a new Economic Policy Institute study.
U.S. News & World Report April 28, 2016 -
Manufacturing is a major industry in Indiana, which holds its primary next week. A 2015 report by the Economic Policy Institute found that manufacturing makes up a larger share of Indiana’s total employment than in any other state.
The Hill April 28, 2016 -
Furthermore, the argument that all-white male candidate pools are due to skills shortages among people of color and women also doesn’t hold up. In 2014, 29.9% of men and 30.2% of women had graduated college, according to the US census bureau. A new report published by the Economic Policy Institute also found that recent young black college graduates aged 20 t0 24 “currently have an unemployment rate of 9.4% – higher than the peak unemployment rate for young white college during the recession”, which was 9%.
The Guardian April 28, 2016 -
But a new study out Tuesday argues that the gulf forms well before that. At the earliest stages of their careers, female workers with a college degree in the US earn an average hourly wage of $16.58, according to data compiled by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a left-leaning Washington think tank. Young men with a college degree, meanwhile, earn an average of $20.94 an hour – $4.36 more than their female counterparts. That shakes out to a $9,000 annual pay gap.
Christian Science Monitor April 28, 2016 -
Of course, millions of women in this country aren’t in this fortunate position, and that’s why I’m writing this. Across 33 states and Washington, D.C., the cost of full-time infant care for one child is more than in-state tuition at a four-year public college. For families with two children, child care costs range from about half as much as rent in San Francisco to nearly three times rent in Binghamton, New York, according to a 2015 report by the Economic Policy Institute. Tax credits and subsidies exist for working families, but they are paltry compared to what you need to pay to have someone watch your child while you commit to a career.
Good Housekeeping April 28, 2016 -
If we take social turbulence and relative deprivation as indicators of despair, the economic experience of women during the Great Recession may lend some clues. The Economic Policy Institute notes that, while men lost far more jobs than women during the 2008 global financial meltdown, they also enjoyed significantly more economic gains; while women added 3.6 million jobs between February 2010 and the June 2014, men gained 5.5 million. While women made up more than half the workforce in 2011, their jobs continue to be marred by the injustice of gender equity. Women are also paid less than their male co-workers, and are so often squeezed out of the maternity leave the rest of the advanced world enjoys.
Pacific Standard April 28, 2016 -
One report estimates that nearly half of black or Hispanic workers or single mothers could see their pay newly increase thanks to the rule change. If your employer doesn’t like it, they can either raise your pay over $50K, or stop asking you to work extremely long hours without overtime pay. Naturally, places that are used to having employees work long hours without paying overtime are worried. Colleges and universities are worried.
Gawker April 26, 2016 -
This trend of being an underemployed millennial is also not unique to New York. A recent report released by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that for recent college graduates, aged between 21 and 24 years old, the underemployment rate was 12.6%, compared to 26.8% in 2007. “A third of young high school graduates are underemployed and one in eight young college graduates is underemployment. Those are improvements from last year, but nowhere near the economy of 2000,” Teresa Kroeger, one of the authors of the EPI report’s authors, told the Guardian. The economy of 2000, by some standards, is when the economy has been at its best in the recent history.
The Guardian April 26, 2016 -
Of course, millions of women in this country aren’t in this fortunate position, and that’s why I’m writing this. Across 33 states and Washington, D.C., the cost of full-time infant care for one child is more than in-state tuition at a four-year public college. For families with two children, child care costs range from about half as much as rent in San Francisco to nearly three times rent in Binghamton, New York, according to a 2015 report by the Economic Policy Institute. Tax credits and subsidies exist for working families, but they are paltry compared to what you need to pay to have someone watch your child while you commit to a career.
Elle April 26, 2016 -
Some economists, however, see it differently. According to David Cooper, a senior economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, the notion that higher wages increase unemployment is oversold by opponents. “This is just pure scare tactics,” Cooper told ATTN:. “We’ve heard this for decades, and it’s never really materialized.” According to Cooper, even if higher wages do wind up cutting a small amount of jobs—which, studies show, is possible—better paid employees would pump money into the economy, creating more demand, and, therefore, jobs. “Even if there’s cost-savings to some restaurants, that should lead to job creation somewhere as long as those dollars are getting in the hands of of people that are going to go out and spend that money—and again, that’s part of the function of the minimum wage, to make sure that that cost savings being generated from that productivity improvement isn’t just going to a small subset of people,” Cooper said.
ATTN: April 26, 2016 -
The latest piece of damning evidence on this subject comes from the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank funded by the Labor Movement. It’s “Retirement Inequality Chartbook” calls 401(k)s “ an accident of history,” that is obscure parts of the U.S. tax code that were never meant to be substitutes for pensions, which were largely abandoned by corporate employers. Those with high salaries do very well in 401(k)s, the report notes, although everyone else comes up short. That’s because the high earners get the lion’s share of tax benefits, causing a widespread inequality among savers. “Retirement insecurity has worsened for most Americans as retirement wealth has become more unequal,” the EPI report notes. “For many groups, the typical household has no savings in retirement accounts and balances are low even when focusing only on households with savings.”
Forbes April 26, 2016 -
Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute is skeptical, though, that the Fed should be raising rates to fight inflation right now. “I’m not seeing any acceleration in inflation, no acceleration in wages,” Gould said. She pointed to the most recent Consumer Price Index report, for March, showing price inflation for all goods up 0.9 percent in the previous 12 months (energy prices were down 12.6 percent year-to-year, helping to account for the very weak overall inflation figure). Core inflation, excluding food and energy prices, rose 2.2 percent. Americans’ average hourly wages, meanwhile, rose 2.3 percent on an annual basis according to the latest Labor Department report, for March. “Having a very low-inflation economy causes problems,” Gould said. “People are still trying to get out from under a lot of their household debt. If people’s wages went up along with inflation, that might help.”
Marketplace April 25, 2016 -
EPI data cited in chart.
The Washington Post April 25, 2016 -
The old rationale that minimum-wage jobs are for teenagers, or a stepping-stone for adults, and therefore should not be tampered with too severely, is misleading. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 80 percent of hourly wage workers are over age 25; and the Economic Policy Institute states that 26 percent of the workforce earns less that $10.55/hour.
Salon April 25, 2016 -
Max Sawicky, a former economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank in the U.S., outlined a progressive case against basic income in 2013, calling it a “distraction” from raising the minimum wage, guaranteeing full employment, rolling back Clinton-era welfare reforms and supporting unions — all policies, he argues, “more in keeping with our current system and our political culture.”
FiveThirtyEight April 25, 2016 -
Gabler laments that he might have avoided his fate if his “income had steadily grown the way incomes used to grow in America.” But, he says, “it didn’t, and they don’t.” He claims that inflation-adjusted hourly wages peaked in 1972. That is flat-out wrong. The liberal Economic Policy Institute says that the median hourly wage peaked in 2009. My re-analyses of its estimates—which use a better inflation adjustment—indicate that last year, the median hourly wage was 17 percent higher than in 1973.
National Review April 25, 2016 -
According to a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute, the labor market for recent high school and college graduates has gotten better since the recession, but young people—especially minorities—still face elevated unemployment and weak wage growth. In the report “The Class of 2016,” researchers found the unemployment rate to be 5.6 percent for young college graduates and 9.4 percent for young black college graduates, which is higher than the 9 percent unemployment rate for young white college graduates at the peak of the recession. For young high school graduates, the unemployment rate jumps to 17.9 percent, which is also higher than before the recession. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for young, black high school graduates is 28.4 percent.
The Boston Globe April 22, 2016 -
The Economic Policy Institute released a report today that shows that for all those advantages, young women still earn far less than young men. According to the EPI’s annual report, male college graduates earned 8.1 percent more in 2016 than in 2000, while female college graduates earned 6.8 percent less than in 2000. Meaning, it’s not only that circumstances aren’t improving as quickly for women as they are for men—they’re getting worse.
Elle April 22, 2016 -
There’s more bad news for women about the gender pay gap. Although more women are graduating from American colleges and universities than ever before, they are still being paid less than their male counterparts when they enter the workforce, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) indicated in a new report Thursday.
The study published by the Washington-based think tank affiliated with the U.S. labor movement found that the gender wage gap has continued to grow among college graduates since 2000 and that black and Hispanic students have higher unemployment rates than their white peers.
International Business Times April 22, 2016 -
That’s the depressing takeaway from a new report from the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. The report finds that recent high school graduates are still struggling to find jobs despite the dramatic improvement in the overall labor market. More than one in seven recent high school graduates, which the institute defines as those ages 17 to 20, are neither working nor enrolled in college; their unemployment rate is nearly 18 percent. (Both numbers are elevated compared with before the recession.) Those who do find jobs are experiencing sluggish wage growth.
FiveThirtyEight April 22, 2016 -
Paychecks, meanwhile, just aren’t growing fast enough. A report last year from the Economic Policy Institute found that growth in worker productivity is outstripping wage growth. From 2000 to 2014, productivity increased by 21.6 percent, while median compensation in the U.S. rose by only 1.8 percent.
The Huffington Post April 22, 2016 -
Just as many former renters briefly became homeowners during the housing boom, only to return to renter status, so too did many stock-market dabblers take what was left of their capital and go home. Sure, more than half of American households still own equities, but for most of those investors it’s a modest amount (and the other half owns precisely zero); about two-thirds of equity ownership is held in the top 5 percent of portfolios. The top 20 percent owns 85 percent of all financial assets, according to the Levy Institute; the Economic Policy Institute is even more specific at 87.2 percent. Income gains have been even more skewed toward the top.
Bloomberg April 22, 2016 -
This year’s college grads have good reason to feel a notch better — the unemployment rate for recent college graduates is 5.6%, the lowest rate since June 2008, according to a new report published Thursday by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning research group. New graduates have been taking it in the chin during the Great Recession and in the years after. They have been stereotyped as unemployed or underemployed — the college grad baristas — for being unable to find jobs that would use their four-year degrees. That situation is improving, but not enough. A lack of quality jobs that pay well continues to plague newbies in the job market. Add to that the burden of skyrocketing college costs, and it’s a tough situation to be in.
CNN Money April 22, 2016 -
Even though the economy has improved since the recession, the class of 2016 is entering a job market that’s still hobbled by weak trends, such as higher levels of unemployment for young Americans and stagnant wages, according to a new study from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Young college grads, for instance, are suffering from an underemployment rate of 12.6 percent, compared with 9.6 percent in 2007, before the recession started. It’s even worse for recent high-school graduates, with about one-third currently underemployed, compared with roughly 27 percent in 2007, the study found. Underemployment means people who want a full-time job but are working in a part-time role, or who are working in a job that requires fewer skills than they have.
CBS Moneywatch April 22, 2016