Media clips
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Nearly 90 percent, and this is a study that the Economic Policy Institute did last summer, showing that nearly 90 percent of the recipients of that minimum wage increase are at least 20 years old, more than half work full time, more than a quarter are parents. I mean these are working people not unlike every other working person, and they do need to – it seems to me and I think it is not just economic issue, it is a moral issue. If they’re working full time, they should not be in poverty.
NPR February 26, 2013 -
That’s substantially higher than the current federal minimum wage of $7.25, or $15,080 per year for an employee working 40 hours per week all year. When adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage is now lower in 2011 than it was in 1967, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Huffington Post February 26, 2013 -
In a blog post, Economic Policy Institute analyst David Cooper explored that idea further. He ran the numbers on some other possible indices to which minimum wage could be tied. The chart below shows his work.
Bill Moyers Blog February 26, 2013 -
The statement doesn’t identify how such a bureau would be structured, and the decision ultimately lies with Congress. But a handful of groups have advocated for some version of the idea—notably, the Brookings Institution, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Migration Policy Institute, and the Economic Policy Institute. The chamber wouldn’t comment beyond what was in Thursday’s statement, but the AFL-CIO pointed to an EPI plan as an influence on its 2009 immigration-reform platform. Here’s what that would look like:
Under the EPI plan, a commission would hold a great deal of power over immigration policy. The Foreign Worker Adjustment Commission—proposed in 2009 by EPI’s Ray Marshall—would have the authority to set employment-based immigration levels, subject only to congressional disapproval. FWAC would study labor shortages by looking at regional, demographic, and educational trends to develop its policy suggestions. The top priority, Marshall writes, “is the preservation of U.S. labor standards.” (Brookings advocates for a similar commission, but with a narrower scope. It would provide annual recommendations to Congress and the president, but the recommendations could be ignored.)
The EPI proposal envisions the president wielding a great deal of power over the commission’s structure.
National Journal February 26, 2013 -
And even for the lucky ones who are working, the picture remains bleak. According to the Economic Policy Institute, between 2000 and 2011 wages adjusted for inflation fell by over 11 percent for young high school grads and by 5.4 percent for young college grads.
The Huffington Post February 22, 2013 -
“It’s not as good as a good defined-benefit plan,” says Monique Morrissey, an economist at the progressive Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, “but better than what they have now.”
She says government guaranteed programs like California’s are a hot topic in the pension community right now. “Everyone’s trying to figure out something workable.”
Los Angeles Times February 22, 2013 -
“It’s a massive drag on the economy. We lost three-quarter million public-sector jobs in the recovery,” said economist Heidi Shierholz of the labor-friendly Economic Policy Institute. “We’re still losing government jobs, although the pace has slowed. But we haven’t turned around yet.”
Associated Press February 22, 2013 -
Yet if tech workers are in such short supply, why are so many of them unemployed or underpaid? According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), tech employment rates still haven’t rebounded to pre-recession levels. And from 2001 to 2011, the mean hourly wage for computer programmers didn’t even increase enough to beat inflation.
The ease of hiring H-1B workers certainly hasn’t helped. More than 80 percent of H-1B visa holders are approved to be hired at wages below those paid to American-born workers for comparable positions, according to EPI. Experts who track labor conditions in the technology sector say that older, more expensive workers are particularly vulnerable to being undercut by their foreign counterparts. “You can be an exact match and never even get a phone call because you are too expensive,” says Norman Matloff, a computer science professor at the University of California-Davis. “The minute that they see you’ve got 10 or 15 years of experience, they don’t want you.”
Mother Jones February 22, 2013 -
That would still be below 1968’s level, but it would represent a $5,000-plus raise for close to 30 million workers at or near the minimum today (it would also add $25 billion to gross domestic product, according to the Economic Policy Institute). That bill went nowhere without White House leadership; even a lunch-bucket Democrat like Tom Harkin refused to hold hearings on the idea.
The Washington Post February 8, 2013 -
Algernon Austin, director of the Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy program at the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute, agrees that the lower educational attainment rate among African-Americans plays a significant role in their current and disproportionately higher unemployment rates.
“As educational attainment increases, unemployment rates decrease,” he said. “Another factor is age. Black workers are somewhat younger than whites, and younger people have higher unemployment rates.”
BET February 8, 2013 -
According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, inflation-adjusted wages for young high school graduates declined by 11.1 percent between 2000 and 2011, and the real wages of young college graduates declined by 5.4 percent. EPI also saw evidence among millennials of a hesitation to seek new employment opportunities, with 30 percent fewer voluntary quits each month.
The Huffington Post February 8, 2013 -
Researchers know a lot about how various factors associated with income level affect a child’s learning: parents’ educational attainment; how parents read to, play with and respond to their children; the quality of early care and early education; access to consistent physical and mental health services and healthy food. Poor children’s limited access to these fundamentals accounts for a good chunk of the achievement gap, which is why conceiving of it instead as an opportunity gap makes a lot more sense.
But we rarely discuss the impact of concentrated poverty—and of racial and socioeconomic segregation—on student achievement. James Coleman’s widely cited 1966 report Equality of Educational Opportunity has drawn substantial attention to the influence of family socioeconomic status on a child’s academic achievement. However, as Richard Kahlenberg, Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation, notes: “Until very recently, the second finding, about the importance of reducing concentrations of school poverty, has been consciously ignored by policymakers, despite publication of study after study that confirmed Coleman’s findings.”
It’s time that we stop ignoring it. The past few decades have seen increasing income polarization, with the top 1 percent reaping the vast majority of societal gains, the middle class shrinking, and those at the bottom losing ground. As a result, concentrated poverty is more potent and relevant an issue than ever. Add to that the fact that 2012 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of William Julius Wilson’s groundbreaking book, The Truly Disadvantaged, and we have every reason to reexamine the life realities, impacts and policy implications of segregation and entrenched, concentrated US poverty.
The Nation February 8, 2013 -
“Given the track record of Foxconn on labor rights…we would all be wise to be skeptical until we see evidence that this is going to translate into something meaningful,” said Scott Nova, the executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium.
According to the University of Singapore sociologist Qi Dongtao [PDF], 73.7% of the Chinese workforce belongs to a single union: The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), which often appears to work against its own members on behalf of employers or the Chinese Communist Party. If Foxconn factory workers were granted an active decision-making role in their union, it would represent a significant break from national historical precedent—however, merely holding elections does not make this inevitable.
Isaac Shapiro of the Economic Policy Institute said two important questions remain unanswered: “One, what type of authority would these committees [of elected workers] have? Two, how would you ensure that they are truly independent of management and can do what they want without repercussions?”
MSNBC.com February 8, 2013 -
Did you know that about 26 percent of black retirees and 25 percent of Latinos depended on Social Security for 100 percent of their income in 2011? That compares to just about 10 percent of Asian retirees and 14 percent of their white peers. One of my best and smartest sources, Algernon Austin at the Economic Policy Institute, (EPI) has done the research. Something serious to think about this morning. http://www.pewresearch.org/daily-number/more-americans-worried-about-having-enough-for-retirement/
The Huffington Post February 1, 2013 -
Rather than represent an area of possible compromise, the chained CPI has inspired the stiffest opposition from liberals to date. The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank that Nather did not consult, released a letter of opposition to the chained CPI this past autumn signed by 250 Ph.D. economists and 50 additional social insurance experts.
Politico February 1, 2013 -
A newly-released analysis by the Economic Policy Institute shows that the super-rich have done well in the economic recovery while almost everyone else has done badly. The top 1 percent of earners’ real wages grew 8.2 percent from 2009 to 2011, yet the real annual wages of Americans in the bottom 90 percent have continued to decline in the recovery, eroding by 1.2 percent between 2009 and 2011.
Robert Reich Blog February 1, 2013 -
Here are three charts from the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. When you look at the level of poverty in the United States compare with other developed countries, it is not pretty:
Economic Policy InstituteWhen you focus on child poverty, you go from bad to worse:
Economic Policy InstituteAnd how much of an investment does the United States government make in reducing poverty, compared with other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries?
The New York Times February 1, 2013 -
Larry Mishel and Nicholas Finio have a fascinating little study out on the distrubutional consequences of the Great Recession and the recovery that they’ve given the somewhat curious name “Earnings of the top 1.0 percent rebound strongly in the recovery.”
That’s true. But as their table makes clear, the top 1 percent’s bounceback since the bottom, though quite robust, has been small compared to the initial fall. On net, the bottom 90 percent of Americans have faired poorly and the top one percent of Americans has fared even worse. The real winners have been the “9 percent”—the rich-but-not-too-rich humble workaday doctors, dentists, corporate lawyers, medium-sized business owners and so forth who don’t quite make it into the elite. I would add that this 9 percent is doubly blessed, since Obama-era tax policy has been pretty hard on the top one percent while largely sparing the 9 percent.
Slate January 25, 2013 -
“We have an unemployment crisis that is almost entirely due to a lack of demand in the economy,” Nicholas Finio of the Economic Policy Institute said. “In the current economic environment, the most important thing for job growth is fiscal stimulus, such as fiscal relief to states in budget crisis, infrastructure investment, and direct job-creation programs in areas particularly hard-hit by unemployment. Unfortunately, the labor secretary doesn’t have the ability to create fiscal policy, but the new secretary can be an important voice in pointing out that we still have a terrible unemployment crisis.”
Campus Progress January 25, 2013 -
“It’s mathematically impossible and an absurd objective if you’re trying to get there entirely with spending cuts from the starting point of our deeply depressed U.S. economy,” said Andrew Fieldhouse, a former researcher for the House Budget Committee who now works as an analyst at the progressive Economic Policy Institute.
The Fiscal Times January 25, 2013 -
But here’s what a new study from the Economic Policy Institute tells us about America’s education system: Every one of those common assumptions is simplistic, misguided, or downright wrong.
When you break down student performance by social class, a more complicated, yet more hopeful, picture emerges, highlighted by two pieces of good news. First, our most disadvantaged students have improved their math scores faster than most comparable countries. Second, our most advantaged students are world-class readers.
Why break down international test scores by social class? In just about every country, poor students do worse than rich students. America’s yawning income inequality means our international test sample has a higher share of low-income students, and their scores depress our national average. An apples-to-apples comparison of Americans students to their international peers requires us to control for social class and compare the performances of kids from similarly advantaged and disadvantaged homes.
That’s precisely what Martin Carnoy, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, and Richard Rothstein have done in their new paper, “What Do International Tests Really Show About U.S. Student Performance?” Carnoy and Rothstein dive into international standardized tests and compare U.S. performance, by social class, to three post-industrial countries (Germany, the UK, and France) and three top-scoring countries (Canada, Finland, and Korea).
The Atlantic January 25, 2013 -
Lower education levels also correlate with lower health, leading to a “health drag” on the economy, says Elaine Weiss, an education expert at the liberal Economic Policy Institute.
National Journal January 25, 2013 -
Critics of the account-based plans complain that the account-based plans reward healthier employees while putting those who are poorer and suffer from chronic diseases at risk. This is because the emphasis in these plans tends to be on preventative medicine. “Well visits tend to be covered but not pharmaceuticals, and those who can’t afford to pay out of pocket stop taking their pills,” says Elise Gould, director of health policy research at the Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC January 18, 2013 -
“The answer is very clear: We need substantial additional stimulus to support the economy,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a left-of-center think tank. “We are choosing, as a country and as a town [Washington], not to do it, with millions of jobless workers.”
The Huffington Post January 18, 2013 -
The key thing nobody seems to be focused on: wages – Economic Policy Institute
Wall Street Journal January 18, 2013 -
“There are very few occupations or industries where unions are strong enough where they can set standards,” says Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute. “There are no standards being set, so companies can push down on wages for all workers, union and nonunion alike.” When the Detroit automakers secure two-tier contracts, that enables them to pay new hires $16 an hour, far less than the $28 an hour earned by longtime workers. This also pushes down labor’s share.
The New York Times January 18, 2013 -
Costa has a background in immigration law and tends to dig into the economics of immigration from a labor perspective.
ABC News-Univision January 11, 2013 -
“It’s absolutely status quo,” Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said about Friday’s jobs report. “If we were at full employment, that would be fine. But status quo at a time like this represents ongoing suffering for millions of Americans.”
Los Angeles Times January 11, 2013 -
Research by the Economic Policy Institute suggests that job losses in the public sector have done more to hinder the country’s economic recovery than just inflate unemployment numbers: they have also had a noticeable ripple effect through the economy at large. “If a teacher loses his or her job, they’re going to have less money in their pockets,” said EPI’s Heidi Shierholz. “So they’re going to buy fewer goods and services in the private sector.” Furthermore, she said, job losses in the public sector mean that state and local governments spend less to accommodate their staff. For example, if a local police force employs fewer police officers, then the municipal government buys and maintains fewer police vehicles. “When we start to hire teachers back, that also probably means that other kinds of spending will also come back,” said Shierholz.
MSNBC January 11, 2013 -
Economist Heidi Shierholz, lead author of a study last May on the labor market prospects for the college graduating class of 2012, speculates that rising levels of student debt and declining family wealth played a role.
“We could be having some adjustments (in which) those who are sheltering in school are being offset by those who can’t find a job so they have to quit school,” says Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute. Similarly, she says, “if your parents just saw the value of their house (drop), they might be much less able to help you finance college.”
Shierholz, who has not reviewed the Pew study, cautioned that job opportunities for young people “remain very much at crisis levels” and that the data support anecdotal stories of recent graduates struggling to find work.
“There’s a much bigger group (of young adults) who are neither working nor in school,” she said. “And it does beg the question, how are they getting by?”
USA Today January 11, 2013