If Murray-Scott passes, the $12 per hour minimum wage wouldn’t kick in until 2020, five years from now. In fact, according to a new study from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, the annual percentage increase in the minimum wage would peak at 12.5 percent in the second year. (When the minimum wage rose from 2007 to 2008, it increased by 13.6 percent.)
The New Republic
May 1, 2015
Adjusting for inflation raising the minimum wage to $12 by 2020 would return the minimum wage to where it was in 1968, the Economic Policy Institute said Thursday morning. In 1968, the minimum wage was 52.1% of the median wage. Current minimum wage is about 37.1% of the median wage. “Raising the federal minimum wage to $12.00 by 2020, under the conservative assumption of no real wage growth at the median, would leave the ratio at 54.1%, just above where it was in 1968,” EPI wrote in a report released Thursday.
The Guardian
May 1, 2015
A $10.10 wage would have brought it in line with about where it would have been if it had kept up with inflation since its peak in 1968. But this was, according to economist David Cooper with the Economic Policy Institute who has worked with lawmakers on crafting the $12 wage bill, “the lowest possible threshold for where you could be aiming.” He added, “What you’re saying is that low-wage workers should have seen no material improvement in their standard of living over the last 50 years.” That’s despite the fact that there has been significant economic growth, driven in part by rapidly increasing worker productivity.
Think Progress
May 1, 2015
The Raise the Wage Act would raise the federal minimum wage $0.75 in 2016 to $8.00 an hour and raise it an additional $1 per year for the next four years. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that 37.7 million workers would benefit from the cumulative five-year increase. As shown in the infographic above, the family of the average person in this group relies on the earner for more than half of its total income.
The Washington Post
April 30, 2015
“Most of this deceleration is likely transitory—due in part to particularly bad weather in the first quarter. Growth in the rest of 2015 will most likely be faster than previously projected, as the economy bounces back from this weak start to the year. Yet data on GDP in recent years confirms that the U.S. economy has not reached escape velocity—growth rates have not broken past the 2%-2.5% pace that normally is associated with rapid declines in economic slack. Because growth has been steady for years, it might be tempting for some policy makers to shrug their shoulders and declare that this is the ‘new normal’ and the best we can do. The economic evidence clearly suggests otherwise—this economy still needs active measures to boost demand to achieve a full recovery. At a minimum, this means the Federal Reserve should put off interest rate increases for the rest of 2015.” — Josh Bivens, Economic Policy Institute
Wall Street Journal
April 30, 2015
The Economic Policy Institute estimates that between 2007 and 2010, a total of $121.5 billion in executive compensation was deductible from corporate earnings, and roughly 55 percent of this total was for performance-based compensation.
The Atlantic Monthly notes that: “Between 1940 and 1970, average CEO pay remained below $1 million (in 2000 dollars). According to the Economic Policy Institute, from 1978 to 2013, CEO pay at American firms rose a stunning 937 percent, compared with a mere 10.2 percent growth in worker compensation over the same period, all adjusted for inflation. In 2013, the average CEO pay at the top 350 U.S. companies was $15.2 million.”
Congressional Mentions
April 30, 2015
Regarding the April 27 editorial “Mr. Obama’s trade fight,” defending the Trans-Pacific Partnership:
Critics object that the proposal would further lower incomes and opportunities for working Americans. The template for the trade deal is the1994 North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, upon which all of the major U.S. trade deals since have been based. Under that model, the United States negotiates away the interests of Americans who work here to gain benefits for Americans who invest elsewhere. Unsurprisingly, these agreements have helped generate chronic trade deficits, driven down wages and increased inequality.
The editorial was silent on this record. Its one reference to NAFTA was followed by the irrelevant point that the United States is running a surplus with four minor trading partners. The major argument seems to be that the Trans-Pacific Partnership will check China’s influence — in Asia!
The editorial board’s failure to demonstrate domestic economic benefits from the Trans-Pacific Partnership reveals just how weak the case for it is.
The Washington Post
April 29, 2015
While rising exports help support American jobs, rising imports can put Americans out of work. “Looking only at exports is like counting only the runs by the home team,” said Robert Scott, a trade economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “Might make you feel good, but it doesn’t tell you the outcome of the game — it doesn’t tell you whether your team won or not.” The U.S. trade deficit with Korea has widened more than 80 percent since the trade deal took effect. Scott worries the Asia Pacific deal will bring more of the same. “My answer is, show me the money,” Scott said. “Show me the wages that you’re going to generate for working Americans. Explain how this policy is going to reverse the 30-year trend of stagnant real wages for most working Americans.”
NPR
April 29, 2015
Could you hold the key to eliminating income inequality? We unpack the belief that talking to your friends about how much money you make could help close the pay gap.
The Huffington Post
April 28, 2015
And we know, because we have seen the impact on our economy firsthand. Without our trade deficit with Japan, Michigan would have an estimated 56,200 more jobs, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute. Let me tell you, people feel it.
Detroit Free Press
April 28, 2015
According to Sanders, the impacts he identified are based on an evaluation of House and Senate versions of the budget resolutions by the Office of Management and Budget, the Economic Policy Institute and the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy. Some data was generated based on projections from the Census Bureau and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The Hill
April 28, 2015
The argument has long bothered Thomas Hungerford, senior economist and director for budget and tax policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, because it takes for granted that there is no possibility of raising additional revenue. And in a new paper released Tuesday, Hungerford makes the case that not only is the U.S. not broke, but it can raise enough money to pay for future spending needs, including important additional investments in infrastructure and education. “While the federal government is projected to run deficits far into the future, the U.S. economy is projected to generate substantial amounts of income growth far into the future,” he writes. “This means the real fiscal challenge is simply the political problem of raising revenues that are sufficient to meet our spending needs.”
Fiscal Times
April 28, 2015
President Bill Clinton at the time made big promises of job gains, while presidential contender Ross Perot warned of a “giant sucking sound” that would devour nearly six million jobs. Some economists since have argued loudly that Nafta did indeed devour jobs and drive down wages, while others have argued that such claims are overblown and simplistic.
Wall Street Journal
April 27, 2015
Each side has its share of studies to bolster its argument about the benefits and costs of the agreement. Critics have pointed to the loss of manufacturing jobs over the past generation. The Economic Policy Institute, a think tank critical of many major trade deals, has determined that non-college-educated Americans have lost $1,800 annually in wages in recent decades because of international trade agreements.
Newsweek
April 24, 2015
The Washington Post
April 23, 2015
The issue of low wage workers facing erratic work scheduling has taken on more national prominence in recent years. An April study from the Economic Policy Institute found that about 17 percent of the workforce is saddled with “unstable” work shift schedules.
New York Observer
April 23, 2015
The issue of low wage workers facing erratic work scheduling has taken on more national prominence in recent years. An April study from the Economic Policy Institute found that about 17 percent of the workforce is saddled with “unstable” work shift schedules.
MSNBC.com
April 23, 2015
On top of that, the White House and Congress are pushing to “fast-track” the TTP in ways that limit debate and restrict lawmakers from shaping the agreement in ways that address concerns regarding its impact. “A lot of people think the only people who have to be concerned about the downsides are those who will be directly replaced by imports,” Josh Bivens, research and policy director at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, told CBS MoneyWatch. “People say, ‘Well, it’s not that many — the manufacturing sector bears the brunt,’ and that’s actually wrong. Landscapers and waitresses might not be displaced by imports, but their wages suffer because they are competing with those who were displaced.”
Those on the losing end of the deal will likely be workers without college degrees, who represent 70 percent of the U.S. workforce, EPI said. In a research paper about the TPP, Bivens calculated that expanded trade overall has lowered wages for a non-college-educated worker by about $1,800 annually.
CBS News Moneywatch
April 23, 2015
But data show that depending on where people live, how many children they have and what their health care needs are, even $75,000 might not be enough to cover the bills. Nevermind having money left over to save for college or retirement or an emergency. “Often times when you think about the middle class you think about people who are able to invest in their future — being able to save for a rainy day or if somebody loses a job in your family, being able to cover that,” says Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “$75,000, depending on where you’re living, may not allow you to make that kind of investment.”
In New York City, for example, a family of four with two parents and two children would need an annual salary of $94,676 to pay for basic living expenses like housing, food and transportation, according to a budget calculator from the Economic Policy Institute based on 2013 prices. In Washington, they need $89,643 to live. Those figures don’t include savings.
The Washington Post
April 22, 2015
There is such a thing as a good trade agreement, though it’s barely conceivable that Obama and Congress could negotiate one. We could imagine, for example, something that did away with tax havens for corporate profits. (For a detailed analysis of this, see this paper from the Economic Policy Institute.)
The New York Times
April 22, 2015
Elise Gould, a labor economist for the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization, said the phenomena of workers cobbling together jobs to get to a 40-hour work week is a sign of the weakness of the economy. “We’re in a place where the employers hold all the cards. A place where workers can’t get full-time jobs if they want them,” she said. Even the job numbers for March were weak, Gould said, with just 126,000 jobs added to the national economy. In an environment where there are still nearly twice as many job seekers as there are jobs, businesses have little incentive to accommodate workers with better hours or schedules. “That’s why people are trying to piece together work still.”
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
April 22, 2015
The inconvenience and harm to the employee in these situations has been well documented, for example, in a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute. In all, 17 percent of the U.S. workforce faces the challenges of unstable schedules, irregular hours or rotating shifts that make it impossible to establish a consistent routine.
U.S. News & World Report
April 22, 2015
The Economic Policy Institute has calculated that raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $10.10 per hour, as the White House has recommended, would benefit workers who are on average 35 years old. Over a third are 40 or older. Most work their low-paying jobs full time, and on average earn half of their family’s income.
PolicyMic
April 22, 2015
The overtime cutoff salary of $23,660 now only covers 11 percent of salaried workers compared with 65 percent in 1975, according to an analysis by Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, a research group partly funded by labor unions.
Bloomberg
April 22, 2015
Labor advocates, however, complain that NAFTA was a handout to big corporations that came at the expense of workers. A report in 2011 from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute claimed the agreement had cost the U.S. nearly 700,000 jobs.
Fiscal Times
April 22, 2015
This chart from the Economic Policy Institute shows the issue to which Clinton was referring. It displays the change in real annual wages by wage group from 1979-2012.
Fusion
April 22, 2015
According to calculations by the Economic Policy Institute, an income of $385,000 puts you in the national 1 percent. You’d need to make $539,000 to qualify for New Jersey’s 1 percent club — Christie fits the bill in either case.
The Washington Post
April 21, 2015
Conservatives often claim that lazy and unskilled workers are to blame for wage stagnation. But that argument has been debunked by economists such as Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, who point to government minimum-wage and anti-union policies that have weakened the bargaining position of low- and middle-wage workers as the real culprit.
A report by the Economic Policy Institute finds that raising the minimum wage would help reduce inequality, particularly as it affects lower-wage women and, by extension, the families they support. Stiglitz and other experts have pointed out that boosting the minimum wage would lift living standards for up to 25 million people in America without leading to significant job losses or other costs.
Al Jazeera America
April 21, 2015
Josh Bivens of the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute argues, trade deals like these will drive down wages, since they rely on boosting America’s capital-intensive sectors at the expensive of labor intensive ones. Economists would expect an increase in higher-paying white-collar and creative work, but perhaps not enough to balance out negative pressure on manufacturing and other tradable sectors.
Quartz
April 21, 2015
The Washington Post
April 20, 2015