Media clips
-
“In hindsight, the organizers of the march were correct: Achieving rights without fully obtaining the resources to actualize them is only a partial victory. In this 50th anniversary year of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, we can best pay tribute to the march and all that it stood for by recommitting to achieving its unfinished goals,” wrote Algernon Austin, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy. The institute has issued a series of reports examining what it would take to achieve each of the goals of the 1963 March on Washington. Go to www.unfinishedmarch.com to read the essays.
The Washington Post August 15, 2013 -
Writing for the New York Times Economix blog, economist Nancy Folbre cited work by EPI Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Research Robert Scott on international trade and the job losses attributable to trade with China. “A growing body of economic research points to the adverse effects of lowered tariff barriers on manufacturing workers and their communities,” writes Folbre. “Whether or not the losers are beginning to outnumber the winners, free trade is increasing the economic distance between the two.”
The New York Times August 9, 2013 -
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman pointed readers to EPI President Lawrence Mishel’s paper Regulatory Uncertainty: A Phony Explanation for Our Jobs Problem, which Krugman writes is a “thorough debunking” of the idea that economic uncertainty is holding back the economy. Krugman points out that the “uncertainty index” has fallen recently, with “no visible boost to the economy.”
The New York Times August 9, 2013 -
PBS NewsHour talked to Heidi Shierholz about last month’s job creation numbers and the challenges facing our economy. Shierholz told PBS that the economy needs to add 300,000 jobs a month to get to a healthy labor market in the next three years. At the current rate of job creation, it will take at least five years to fill the jobs gap created by the Great Recession.
PBS News Hour August 9, 2013 -
The Wall Street Journal talked to EPI Economist Heidi Shierholz about the worrisome proliferation of low-wage jobs and the effect of high unemployment on incomes. “There’s nothing putting upward pressure on wage growth,” Shierholz told reporter Ben Casselman. “Your employer doesn’t have to pay you big wage increases when they know you don’t have outside options.”
Wall Street Journal August 9, 2013 -
On WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show,” EPI Economist Elise Gould talked about striking fast-food workers and EPI’s Family Budget Calculator. Gould pointed out that raising wages would not only help workers make ends meet, it would stimulate the economy, since workers would be able to spend more on basic needs.
WNYC August 2, 2013 -
On Tuesday EPI and the AFL-CIO hosted Why Citizenship Matters, a forum on immigration policy featuring Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). ABC News’s Jim Avila wrote about Sen. McCain’s presence at the forum and support of the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill.
ABC News August 2, 2013 -
EPI President Lawrence Mishel was on public radio’s “The Diane Rehm Show” on Wednesday to discuss recent strikes by fast-food workers and their demands for a living wage. “This is one of the most hopeful and encouraging things that’s going on right now,” Mishel told listeners. “We have in this country a broken wage-setting mechanism. Over the last 10 years, workers with a college degree, a typical median worker, someone midway up the scale, as well as low-wage workers, have not seen their wages improve relative to inflation.”
Diane Rehm Show August 2, 2013 -
In the New York Times, Steven Greenhouse examined the disconnect between workers’ wages, which have stagnated, and the stock market and executive pay, which have both soared. “The real reason businesses aren’t hiring is they’re not seeing consumer demand for their goods and services increase,” EPI Economist Heidi Shierholz told the Times. “We need greater demand for goods and services. It is clearly true that if people receive higher incomes, that will help the economy.”
The New York Times August 2, 2013 -
Recent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute shows that after four years of recovery, we’re only one-fifth of the way out of the hole left by the recession. At this rate, we won’t close the jobs gap until 2020. That’s too long for out-of-work Americans who continue to suffer.
The Washington Post July 26, 2013 -
“There’s been a lot of misconceptions about the minimum wage,” said David Cooper, an analyst with the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington. “A good portion of those affected are teenagers, but it also affects a good portion of older people with families.”
The federal numbers report only those who make the exact amount of the minimum wage, Cooper said, but there are millions of other people who make just slightly more than that wage, and many of those are at least 20 years old and/or parents of young children.
A family budget calculator created by the EPI estimates that a single parent trying to raise one child in Palm Beach County needs to make $51,593 a year in order to achieve a “secure yet modest living standard.”
Las Vegas Sun July 26, 2013 -
A recent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute falls in line with this view. A family of two parents and two children would need to earn $65,952 to live comfortable but thrifty lives in Pittsburgh. That total includes enough to pay the average rent here as well as the average cost of health care and childcare. It does not include such home staples as cable or Internet access because those are not considered necessary expenses. Still, two parents working full time for the minimum wage would make about half that salary.
“It’s still a relatively austere budget,” said Hilary Wething, a research assistant at the Economic Policy Institute and a co-author of the report. “There’s no emergency fund, there’s no retirement savings, there’s no college savings. There’s no going on vacation.”
Pittsburgh Post Gazette July 26, 2013 -
According to the Economic Policy Institute, it requires an annual income of $63,600 for a family of two adults and two children.
Health care takes up the biggest chunk – $1,380 each month to pay for insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs – while child care is the second-biggest expense at $961 each month.
Other big monthly expenses for Houston-area residents include $945 for housing, $754 for food and $577 for transportation costs, according to the report based on a variety of government and private data.
“It’s not going out to restaurants,” said Natalie Sabadish, a research assistant at the Economic Policy Institute and co-author of the report released earlier this month. Or money for vacations, savings accounts, Internet, cable and cellphones.
“It’s being able to make ends meet month to month,” Sabadish said.
Houston Chronicle July 26, 2013 -
More than 88 percent of those who would benefit from a higher minimum are over the age of 20.
The New York Times July 26, 2013 -
Writing for the Center for American Progress, Sam Fulwood drew upon research by Algernon Austin to make the point that the goals of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom are still largely unmet. “An accurate understanding of what those brave marchers demanded a half-century ago can only lead to the conclusion that their work remains incomplete and should inspire every American to continue their journey to move this nation closer to fairness and equality for all,” wrote Fulwood.
Center for American Progress July 24, 2013 -
Kenneth Thomas writes in U.S. News and World Report about a new paper from EPI Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Research Robert Scott showing that the U.S.–Korea Free Trade Agreement has increased trade deficits and cost American jobs. “Increasing trade deficits mean less domestic labor demand and result in job loss,” Thomas wrote. “But we keep making new ‘trade’ agreements (which usually go beyond trade to include major investment provisions plus intellectual property rules) despite the evident pressures on the middle class that have been building up for decades.”
US News and World Report July 24, 2013 -
The New York Times talked to EPI Economist Heidi Shierholz about the job prospects for recent college graduates. “The class of 2009 just got royally screwed, because their first four years in the labor market were this horrible thing,” said Shierholz, who has done extensive research into the employment prospects of recent college grads
The New York Times July 24, 2013 -
The Guardian spoke with EPI Research and Policy Director Josh Bivens about President Obama’s recent economic speech. “The No 1 problem facing the US economy right now is still far too high unemployment,” Bivens said. “We are not even close to fully recovered from the Great Recession. If you look at the share of working age adults with a job, we’ve only recovered about a fifth of what we lost during the recession.”
The Guardian July 24, 2013 -
EPI Vice President Ross Eisenbrey joined public radio’s Diane Rehm to talk about “the freelance economy.” Millions of Americans work as independent contractors and freelancers. Freelancers have more autonomy, but they don’t receive retirement benefits or health insurance, and they have little job security. “Employers are finding it to their advantage to have a different relationship with their workforce than they had in the past,” Eisenbrey explained.
Diane Rehm Show July 24, 2013 -
De Blasio, along with City Council members Letitia James, Jessica Lappin, Donovan Richards, Steve Levin, Ydanis Rodriguez and Jumaane Williams, will be living on minimum wage for a week as part of the Workers Rising challenge organized by UnitedNY and New York Communities for Change.
…
According to a report by the Economic Policy Institute, an adult with a child in New York needs $67,153 a year to get by. That means working a full-time at $32.28 an hour.
Minimum wage workers earn $10,000 to $18,000 per year. City Council members made $161,236 last year.
New York Daily News July 23, 2013 -
That should bolster state and local government employment — even as the sequester continues to take a toll on federal jobs. In all, job numbers in 34 states have not yet surpassed their 2008 levels, according to the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute. Three states — Nevada, Illinois and Mississippi — are still burdened with unemployment rates of 9 percent or higher, and 17 states have unemployment rates above the national average of 7.6 percent.
Minneapolis Star Tribune July 23, 2013 -
“There’s been a lot of misconceptions about the minimum wage,” said David Cooper, an analyst with the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington. “A good portion of those affected are teenagers, but it also affects a good portion of older people with families.”
The federal numbers report only those who make the exact amount of the minimum wage, Cooper said, but there are millions of other people who make just slightly more than that wage, and many of those are at least 20 years old and/or parents of young children.
A family budget calculator created by the EPI estimates that a single parent trying to raise one child in Palm Beach County needs to make $51,593 a year in order to achieve a “secure yet modest living standard.”
This calculation includes spending $1,183 a month on housing, $943 on health care and $480 on transportation.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel July 23, 2013 -
In the fall of 2009, the U.S. unemployment rate topped 10 percent for the first time in a quarter century, causing policymakers and analysts to lament the catastrophe that had befallen the American public. Yet throughout that entire prior period the average rate of African American unemployment had been 12.2 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. And while the gap between poverty for blacks and whites has narrowed over decades, at 27.6 percent the black poverty rate is nearly double the overall rate of 15 percent.
In other words, as EPI scholars wrote in a 2012 book on working America, “African Americans have essentially been living through a perpetual, slow-moving recession.”
Pritchett earns slightly more than the median wage for black women, which was $13.13 in 2011, according to EPI. Black men, meanwhile, earned a median wage of $14.26. White women earned a median wage of $15.89, while white men topped the list with a median wage of $19.76.
Huffington Post July 23, 2013 -
Currently, 28 percent of all workers are in jobs that keep them at or below the poverty line for a family of four ($23,005 in 2011). And this is the way it’s going to be for at least another decade, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
AOL Jobs July 23, 2013 -
The “Dear Colleague” letter circulated by Baucus and Camp in support of their plan proposes a “blank slate” — specifically, that all tax expenditures would be repealed, unless they were demonstrated to advance one of the following goals: “(1) help grow the economy, (2) make the tax code fairer, or (3) effectively promote other important policy objectives.” A high bar that sounds promising in theory, but these vague criteria require some unpacking to be understood fully. For starters, Thomas Hungerford of the Economic Policy Institute rightfully adds the unstated but immutable Congressional prerogative, “(4) effectively promote important political objectives such as reelection.”
The Fiscal Times July 23, 2013 -
Another study released Monday by the Economic Policy Institute reinforces the link between race and economic status. “Nearly half (45 percent) of poor black children live in neighborhoods with concentrated poverty,” study author Algernon Austin writes, “but only a little more than a tenth (12 percent) of poor white children live in similar neighborhoods.” Race and economic situation are linked, just as race and the application of justice are linked. It seems safe to assume, then, that blacks see entrenched poverty and low social mobility as symptomatic of racial bias, and whites to see it as warranted.
The Atlantic July 23, 2013 -
C-SPAN July 23, 2013
-
If you’re like most of us, you don’t have profit money from large corporations flowing into your bank account like a fire hose. But some do — they make up a tiny percentage of our country, but they have most of the power. There are, however, ways to fix that.
I know — nothing new there, right? What is new is a fantastic interactive website where you can start to figure out what happened, why it happened, and how we can fix it. Check it out: Inequality.Is.
Upworthy July 22, 2013 -
Indeed, McDonald’s may have inadvertently triggered more support for a movement that has so far only had weak political momentum — to raise the minimum wage.
“[The budget] shows that what they’re paying is something you can’t live on — that people have to have two jobs, and much higher wages in order to support themselves,” says Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute and a labor-market economist. “They demonstrated, inadvertently, that they don’t pay a living wage.”
He says that the minimum wage should be at least 50% of the average wage. Right now, at $7.25 an hour, the federal minimum wage is just about 37% of the average wage, which Mishel said was $19.76 in 2012. (Some states set their own minimum wages, which can be seen in this chart.)
If the minimum wage were bumped to 50% of the average wage, it would be $9.88, which works out to $20,550 a year before taxes.
Forbes July 22, 2013 -
So AOL Jobs decided to write up a second budget for a McDonald’s employee who is a single parent with one child living in Newaygo County, Michigan, which has the average cost of living for the country. The income numbers are the same, but the expenses are based on the “budget calculator” from the liberal think tank the Economic Policy Institute, excluding tax, but with the original budget’s ambitious $100 of monthly savings.
As you can see below, our McDonald’s employee with a second job and one child will go into $1,548 of debt each month, or $51.60 a day.
AOL Jobs July 22, 2013