Growth in the U.S. trade deficit with China has eroded an estimated 3.4 million American jobs over the past 16 years and also explains almost entirely why manufacturing employment has not fully rebounded in the wake of the Great Recession, new research asserts. The report out Tuesday from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute describes how, since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, U.S. imports from the country have surged, while U.S. exports to China have lagged in comparison. (whole story)
Route Fifty | October 24, 2018
REPORT: TRADE DEFICIT WITH CHINA HAS COST MILLIONS OF U.S. JOBS: The U.S. trade deficit with China has ballooned since Beijing joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, eliminating 3.4 million American jobs, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute out this morning.
China has propelled into the second-largest economy at the expense of many U.S. manufacturing plants and jobs, the report shows. “China’s trade-distorting practices, aided by China’s currency manipulation and misalignment and its suppression of wages and labor rights, resulted in a flood of dumped and subsidized imports that greatly exceeded the growth of U.S. exports to China,” the report explains. It also adds that Beijing failed to implement certain policies that would have allowed for a “promised surge” of U.S. goods to China. (whole story)
Politico Pro | October 24, 2018
Massachusetts is among the state’s hardest hit by the United States trade deficit with China, which has grown by $100 billion since the Great Recession and has stripped nearly 100,000 jobs from the state, according to a new study. The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank that Northeastern University economist Barry Bluestone helped co-found, reported in its study released Tuesday that every state and Congressional district has lost manufacturing jobs due to the trade deficit. However, few have been hit as hard as the Bay State, and in particular the Third Congressional District. Massachusetts lost 99,100 jobs from 2001 to 2017, or 2.75 percent of its total workforce making it the seventh hardest hit state in the country from competition with China. (whole story)
State House News Service | October 24, 2018
If the Trump administration wants to get tough on trade with China and other countries, it must take stronger action to address currency manipulation and misalignment and not just impose tariffs on Chinese goods, according to the author of a new study on the effects of trade with Beijing on U.S. manufacturing employment. “I don’t think the tariffs alone are going to solve our trade problems with China,” Robert Scott, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute. (paywall, appears to be whole story)
Inside U.S. Trade | October 24, 2018
New Hampshire has 24,000 fewer jobs because of the massive trade deficit with China – 3.55 percent of the state workforce in 2017, a larger percentage than any other state in the nation, according to report released Tuesday by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. The report blames a $375 billion deficit with China for the loss of 3.4 million jobs in the U.S. manufacturing and high-tech sectors since 2001, when China joined the World Trade Organization. The total includes actual job loss and “job opportunity” loss. (whole story)
New Hampshire Business Review | October 24, 2018
America’s trade deficit with China cost the United States 3.4 million jobs between 2001 and 2017, with the losses hitting all 50 states and every congressional district, according to a new study released by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI). The report notes that the trade deficit has grown by an average of almost 10 percent a year since China entered the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, ballooning to $375.2 billion last year. (whole story)
Lifezette | October 24, 2018
“At the end of the day, it really to me points to the hazards of a single case study,” Ben Zipperer, an expert on the minimum wage at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI), told the Times after writing a blog post critical of the University of Washington analyses. (In defense of the work, Jacob Vigdor, a UW economist, argued the two studies were not wholly incompatible and stressed the complexity of the issues: “What we can’t tell from our data is whether a lot of people are trying to find work and not finding anyone willing to hire them, or whether there just aren’t as many people making the effort,” he told the paper.)
Vice News | October 24, 2018
A critique published Monday by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute says problems with the first study haven’t been fixed, and thus the new study overstates the reduction in new entrants to Seattle’s labor market. Since it defines “new entrant” as someone making less than $15 an hour, the study would count someone who got hired at $16 or $17 an hour as a lost job instead of a better one.
CNN | October 24, 2018
California has lost more jobs to China than any other state since 2001, fueled by Silicon Valley outsourcing and the continued shrinking of Southern California’s apparel industry, according to a report released Tuesday by a Washington, D.C., think tank. Some 562,000 jobs were displaced in the Golden State, the equivalent of a 3.34% share of California’s total employment of 16.8 million jobs in 2017, the Economic Policy Institute concluded. (whole story)
Los Angeles Times | October 24, 2018
President Trump’s trade war with China won’t bring back the jobs lost from the trade deficit with China, according to Robert Scott, a senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, whose work Trump cited on the campaign trail and during his presidency. (whole story, chart included)
Axios | October 24, 2018
TRADE TROUBLES: The trade deficit that has “ballooned” since China joined the World Trade Organization has cost 3.4 million US jobs from 2001 to 2017, hitting the manufacturing sector the hardest, according to a new report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “Between 2001 and 2011 alone , growing trade deficits with China reduced the incomes of directly impacted workers by $37 billion per year, and in 2011 alone, growing competition with imports from China and other low wage-countries reduced the wages of all U.S. non-college graduates by a total of $180 billion,” according to the report. Economists Robert E. Scott and Zane Mokhiber say that because imports from China have soared, while exports to China have increased at a slower pace, the US is losing jobs and missing opportunities to add them in manufacturing. “Some regions are devastated by layoffs and factory closings while others are surviving but not growing the way they could be if new factories were opening and existing plants were hiring more workers,” they write. “This slowdown in manufacturing job generation is also contributing to stagnating wages of typical workers and widening inequality.” Read the report here.
Politico Pro | October 24, 2018
Meanwhile, the left-leaning Economics Policy Institute in Washington is issuing a report Tuesday that paints a dim picture of the impact of the U.S. trade deficit with China on American jobs, particularly in New York. The trade deficit, now more than $260 billion, cost the U.S. 3.4 million jobs between 2001 when China entered the World Trade Organization, and 2017. Three quarters of the job losses were in manufacturing, the report concluded. (Rob and EPI cited throughout)
Times Union | October 24, 2018
Critics of the UW team’s methodology point out that there are other forces driving differences between labor markets in Seattle and the rest of Washington besides the minimum-wage increases during the study period — namely, the rapid growth of the city and rising costs for just about everything. “In reality, Seattle’s economic boom simply meant that low-wage jobs were converted into higher-wage jobs,” not that there are fewer job opportunities, wrote Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, which focuses on the impacts on low- and middle-income people of a broad range of policies. He pointed out other shortcomings, including the study’s omission of workers at businesses with more than one location, such as chain restaurants, because of limitations in the state employment data the UW used.
The Seattle Times | October 24, 2018
In a blog for the Economic Policy Institute on Monday, Zipperer said that he thinks even the new study has flaws:
By comparing workers in Seattle with workers elsewhere in Washington state, the study incorrectly assumes that the low-wage labor market in Seattle would have grown like other areas in Washington, were it not for the city’s 2015-2016 minimum wage increases. This comparison is unreasonable because, as other researchers have demonstrated (Dube 2017, Rothstein and Schanzenbach 2017, Zipperer and Schmitt 2017), Seattle experienced much faster wage gains for reasons that had nothing to do with the minimum wage. Indeed, the authors of the new study find that Seattle had faster wage growth and diverged from other regions prior to the city’s minimum wage increases.
Splinter News | October 24, 2018
However, some experts were critical of the study, saying some of its methodology and assumptions were problematic. For example, the Seattle study excludes newly entering workers employed by chain businesses, which account for more than a third of low-wage employment in Washington State, which officials at the Economic Policy Institute said was a critical omission. ‘At the same time, if you believe the findings of the study for these workers who already have jobs at the time of the minimum wage increase, all of them seem to be benefitting,’ EPI Economist Ben Zipperer told DailyMail.com. ‘Even the low-hours group (of workers) are making the same amount of money but working fewer hours.’
The Daily Mail | October 24, 2018
Other researchers were more skeptical. When last year’s study came out, Ben Zipperer, an expert on the minimum wage at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, pointed out that it failed to adequately account for the fact that Seattle’s economy was growing rapidly when the minimum wage increases took effect. In a booming economy, Mr. Zipperer argued, we would expect to see fewer workers employed at low wages — not because employers decide it’s not worth hiring people, but because the competition for workers bids up wages, and many low-paying jobs disappear and are replaced by somewhat higher-paying jobs. (Ben quoted throughout)
The New York Times | October 22, 2018
The typical American family has increased its child-care spending by 70% since 1995, according to the U.S. Education Department. Those costs ballooned to a total of $4.9 billion in 2016, which is bad news for women, who tend to shoulder more child-care-related responsibilities and housework than their male partners. Economists say mothers are more likely than fathers to drop down to part-time work or leave the labor force altogether when child care gets pricey. “It just limits their choices,” says Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, adding that women tend to make less money than their male partners, which can push them to be the ones to opt out. (EPI cited throughout)
The Wall Street Journal | October 22, 2018
The 1% has never had it so good. The average wage for the 1% of income earners hit $719,000 per year in 2017, up 3.7% on the year, exceeding their peak of $716,000 per year just before the Great Recession, according to a report released Thursday by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive, nonprofit think tank, citing data from the Social Security Administration. The average wage for the top 0.1% reached $2.7 million in 2017, the second-highest level ever, just 4% below their level in 2007. However, wages for the 0.1% rose 8% on the year in 2017. (whole story)
MarketWatch | October 19, 2018
The U.S. health care system has gotten itself into a bit of a vicious cycle, says the Economic Policy Institute, in which all these health care costs are keeping us from putting money back into the rest of the economy. The Economic Policy Institute recommends policymakers stop trying to restrict health care use through implementing a single-payer system and focus on controlling health care prices, which the EPI says is really what’s getting out of control.
Bustle | October 18, 2018
What are America’s shifting politics around trade going to mean for the upcoming midterm elections? What lessons from the passage of NAFTA – and approximately 25 years of living with it – can advocates for American manufacturing and workers apply to its proposed replacement, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement? Those were the among the topics of discussion today at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC, where an expert panel unpacked the politics and policy influencing our dynamic nationwide trade debate. (whole story)
Alliance for American Manufacturing | October 18, 2018
Employers cover the majority of this expense, but people end up paying for the benefit in different ways as rates continue to rise: The expense is passed along through higher cost sharing for visits and hospitalizations, and more of their compensation is coming in the form of health insurance instead of wages. “Rapid growth in the cost of US health care has put sustained downward pressure on wages and incomes,” a new report by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal nonprofit, found.
Buzzfeed | October 16, 2018
It’s not news that health care costs have been rising for years, but a new report from Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute puts some eye-opening numbers on just how much the rising price of health care has cost American workers.
Fiscal Times | October 16, 2018
In the United States, teachers are hit particularly hard by this lack because roughly 76% of public school teachers are women, and they’re underpaid. In 2015, their weekly wages were roughly 17% lower than those of comparable workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
CNN | October 16, 2018
Employer-sponsored insurance premiums have jumped dramatically in the last 20 years, from almost $6,000 in 1999 to more than $18,000 in 2016, according to a report released Wednesday by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive Washington-based economic think tank. Those health-care expenses accounted for 51.7% of the average annual earnings for the bottom 90% of the workforce in 2016, compared to 25.6% in 1999.
Martketwatch | October 16, 2018
But a new report, released by the Economic Policy Institute the same day Trump’s op-ed went live, undercuts many of the president’s arguments. Healthcare costs are rising, which drives up premiums for employer-sponsored, private insurance plans. That, in turn, helps keep incomes and wages low. Josh Bivens, EPI’s director of research, concluded that the total cost of a family insurance plan provided by a member’s employer more than tripled between 1999 and 2016, jumping from an average of $5,791 to $18,142. For families whose earning fell in the bottom 90 percent, total premium costs as a share of their earnings doubled over the same period, from 25.6 to 51.7 percent.
New York Magazine | October 16, 2018
Ramirez also noted that several studies, including, most recently, a study from the Economic Policy Institute released last month, have shown that tipped workers fare better in cities that have passed “one fair wage” initiatives or laws, and that the restaurant industry in those cities has continued to thrive. “Every study that’s been done to study the effects of an increased minimum wage for tipped workers — EPI, ROC did a study, the DC Fiscal Policy Institute — they’ve all looked at the data and come to the same conclusion: It is beneficial to both workers and business,” she said. “In the age of ‘alternative facts,’ it’s unfortunate that our mayor and elected officials aren’t looking at the real facts to make real policy decisions.”
Metro Weekly | October 5, 2018
A September report by the Economic Policy Institute used American Community Survey data to analyze the effects of eliminating or beginning to phase out the tip credit in both cities (in Seattle’s case, it used data for the Seattle metropolitan area). The report found that the restaurant sector in both areas continued to grow while take-home earnings for tipped workers actually shot up.
The American Prospect | October 5, 2018
Income inequality in America isn’t just in the elite corners of Manhattan and the rolling beaches of Malibu – it can also be found in remote parts of Idaho and rural pockets of Colorado and Nevada. When broken down by state, the three most unequal parts of the country are predictably in the Northeast: Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts. However, when analyzed at a more granular level, researchers at the Economic Policy Institute found inequality spans from America’s Heartland to the Far West – and New York City doesn’t crack the top 10 list for greatest income disparity.
The Daily Mail | October 1, 2018
The findings of the Nebraska study, which focused on 12 absenteeism programs used with 1,606 students in 137 schools, also confirm patterns noted in an Economic Policy Institute report released earlier this week. That report showed that Hispanic English learners, Native American and black students were more likely to miss three days of school within one month.
Education Drive | October 1, 2018
Roughly 740,000 U.S. workers are covered under new scheduling rules across multiple jurisdictions, according to the Economic Policy Institute, but worker advocates say that millions more are still subject to just-in-time scheduling, where employers, aided by software, control for tight labor budgets by canceling and adding shifts with little notice.
The Wall Street Journal | September 27, 2018