The current median wage for employed high school graduates working full time is $9.50, $2 above the federal minimum wage. That means those working full time earn barely enough to keep them out of poverty. By comparison, college graduates make an average hourly wage of $16.81 per hour, which amounts to an annual salary of roughly $35,000, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think-tank.
CBS News
June 7, 2012
Perhaps even more outrageous, more than 10,000 wealthy households paid no federal income taxes at all, according to a recent IRS study.
But it’s not just those wealthy households that got a lucky break. Tax rates have fallen the most for the richest Americans since the mid-1990s. Tax rates for the top 0.01 percent plunged 9.4 percent between 1995 and 2007, while tax rates for the 20th to 99th percentiles fell just 2.9 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Huffington Post
June 7, 2012
In the absence of rising incomes, debt was the means through which many people bought opportunity for themselves and their children. People became more comfortable with red ink because they had to, not because they lost “virtue.” These graphs, from the Economic Policy Institute’s State of Working America, are illustrative. Incomes for everyone but the richest Americans have stagnated:
And over the last twenty years, debt has gone up most for those in the middle:
What we’re witnessing, right now, is the failure of a social arrangement. In the 1970s and 80s, government began to pare back its commitments to decent wages, affordable housing, health care, and education, and in response, Americans took on debt to make up for the loss.
The American Prospect
June 6, 2012
Among recent high school graduates not in college, 30 percent are jobless and actively looking for work, according to the Rutgers report; another 14 percent are jobless but not looking for work.
In contrast, an Economic Policy Institute report showed in 2007 an unemployment rate of just 17.5 percent among recent high school graduates not attending college.
The Huffington Post
June 6, 2012
And since the recession began in 2008, the number of people who were part time because they couldn’t find a full-time position skyrocketed by 1.4 million individuals, or 117 percent, according to research by Heidi Shierholz, economist for the Economic Policy Institute.
“It’s probably more a story of job opportunities,” she said. “Desperate workers have to settle with what they can find.”
MSNBC
June 5, 2012
“I’m happy about that uptick, but I need more to be convinced,” said Heidi Shierholz, labor economist with the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. “It’s still far, far below where it was before the recession started.”
CNNMoney
June 5, 2012
In total, the economy has lost 1.4 million jobs since Obama and Biden took office.
“It had gotten bad by (the time they came into office),” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. “Regardless of political leanings, it is not ambiguous that Obama inherited a labor market in free fall.”
Politifact
June 4, 2012
That more people are looking for work should be good news. It suggests that Americans are increasingly optimistic about their job prospects.
But analysts cautioned that May’s influx was a small one that doesn’t alter the broader trend. Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, estimates that sluggish hiring has discouraged 3.6 million people from looking for work since the recession began in December 2007.
Associated Press
June 4, 2012
The Huffington Post
June 4, 2012
Added Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, “Looking at this ratio sidesteps a lot of structural issues, like baby-boomers retiring. You are looking at prime-age workers and it gives you a better sense of the weakness in our current job market.”
The jobless rate can be misleading because it only includes the share of people looking for work but don’t have a job. Those not trying to get a job aren’t counted as unemployed. And the labor force participation rate has fallen to its lowest level in decades.
Investor's Business Daily
June 4, 2012
Hispanic unemployment is projected to remain above 10% through 2012 in 14 states — including the battleground states of Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Pennsylvania, according to the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
USA Today
June 4, 2012
Daniel Costa, an immigration policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, said he isn’t overly concerned that the number of eligible OPT courses of study was increased.
He said his primary concern is “the fact that none of [the eligible fields] were determined based on demonstrated labor market shortages, and that there are no wage protections for OPT workers, which allows employers to undercut wages paid to US workers.”
“In a few of these fields, there may be shortages, but in many others, it’s unlikely that we’re anywhere near full employment,” said Costa. “But the government hasn’t taken the time to check.”
Computerworld
June 4, 2012
The economy needs to add approximately 100,000 jobs each month to keep even with population growth, said Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
Bloomberg
June 1, 2012
Judging by recent reports, being a young college graduate is nothing to get excited about these days.
Consider one study from the Economic Policy Institute, which said the unemployment rate averaged 9.4 percent from early 2011 through early 2012 for college graduates age 21 to 24. Another 19.1 percent were underemployed, which included those who worked part time but wanted full-time work. And for the next 10 to 15 years, the Class of 2012 will likely earn less than they would if they had graduated when the economy was stronger.
Chicago Tribune
June 1, 2012
“When there’s persistently high unemployment, employers don’t have to pay big wage increases or improve conditions in order to keep you,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, who has not seen the poll data. “They don’t have to give good packages to new workers when there’s a queue around the block for every job.”
Los Angeles Times
June 1, 2012
We already have tremendous inequality in our country: The richest 1 percent of Americans own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute. But we do still have a measure of equality before the law — equality in our basic dignity — and that should be priceless.
The New York Times
May 31, 2012
The college commencement speeches are mostly over. The diplomas are handed out. The parties are winding down. The deadline for repaying student loans looms. Newly minted college graduates are looking for employment, pounding their keyboards and working their mobile phones. Although the job market is slowly mending, it remains grim for young college graduates. The unemployment rate for graduates aged 21 to 24 averaged 9.4 percent over the past year (ending in March 2012), while the underemployment rate was a steep 19.1 percent, according to calculations by the Economic Policy Institute.
Bloomberg BusinessWeek
May 31, 2012
Those particular jobs, most of them blue-collar jobs, are good ones by today’s standards. But they aren’t the only ones that generate line-ups out the door and down the block.
The reason for that can be seen in the chart from the Economic Policy Institute at the top of this post. When the series began in December 2000, the ratio was what now feels like a miraculous 1.1 to 1. But that was the Clinton boom. At one point in the summer of 2009, the figure was 6.9 to 1. Clearly, there has been a lot of improvement in the ratio of job openings to job seekers. It’s now only 3.4 to 1. So the lines are shorter, but for the two-plus people standing in them who don’t get the nod, the search for employment is no less painful.
Daily Kos
May 31, 2012
During their prime years, Americans are supposed to be building careers and wealth to prepare for their retirement. Instead, as the indicator reveals, huge numbers are on the sidelines.
“What it shows is that we are still near the bottom of a very big hole that opened in the recession,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
The Washington Post
May 31, 2012
Asian American’s are the best educated ethnic group in the United States, by a long shot.* Logically, that means they should have the least severe unemployment, given that more educated workers tend to have an easier time in the job market. Instead, according to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, the Asian community suffered from the most severe long-term joblessness of any racial demographic in 2010, during the slow, early period of the economic recovery.
As shown in the graph below, 48.7 percent of unemployed Asian Americans had been out of a job for 27 weeks or more. Blacks were next, at 48.5 percent, followed by Whites, at 42.7 percent.
The Atlantic
May 31, 2012
As the academic year ends, the number of teens looking for summer jobs increases, however, job opportunities are few and far between for underprivileged African American teens, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Poor African American teens trail Hispanic and White teens when it comes to securing a summer job by over 10%. In fact, 36% of white and 31% of Hispanic underserved teens—between the ages of 16 and 19—were able to find employment, while only 20% of Black teens in that same age bracket were as lucky. Middle-class African American teens were only slightly more likely to find work in comparison to their white counterparts.
Black Enterprise
May 30, 2012
“Profits recovered their pre-recession peak very quickly,” said Josh Bivens, research director for the Economic Policy Institute, which closely follows worker income trends in the U.S. “Unit profits in the corporate sector are now at a 45-year high.”
The Fiscal Times
May 30, 2012
Rebecca Thiess of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute lobbed a harsher critique, saying Pelosi’s high-profile endorsement of the $1 million figure is indication that “the Democratic leadership is now comfortable perpetuating the notion that taxpayers earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual income deserve a tax cut.
“Policy-wise this is definitely not something we want to see at all,” Thiess said. “The middle class has become completely lost in this debate; the conversation has now shifted to which strata of the very wealthy deserve a hefty tax cut.”
The Hill
May 30, 2012
In the Republican weekly address, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) blamed the president for American “dependence on government.”
“Instead of concentrating on job creation, President Obama has concentrated on growing government and increasing its control over our lives,” Johnson said. “Because of his policies, dependence on government has increased, and individual opportunity has declined.”
At least one analysis takes issue with Senator Johnson’s statement. According to the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute, government jobs have decreased by 584,000 at the federal, state and local level since June of 2009.
CBS News
May 24, 2012
The economy is missing between 5 million and 6 million workers. That’s how much bigger our labor force would be if there had been no Great Recession, per the Congressional Budget Office.
So, who are the missing five million? That’s the question
Greg Ip of
The Economist recently asked. The above chart from the
Economic Policy Institute (EPI) gives us a hint of at least part of the answer: the young.
The Atlantic
May 24, 2012
Last year’s young college graduates lucky enough to land jobs had an average hourly wage of only $16.81, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute. That’s about $35,000 a year — lower than the yearly earnings of young college graduates in 2007, before the Great Recession. The typical wage of young college graduates dropped 4.6 percent between 2007 and 2011, adjusted for inflation.
The Huffington Post
May 24, 2012
If you’re wondering why so many young college graduatesare living at home, you only have to look at the kind of salaries that they are earning.
These college graduates (ages 21-24) are making an average hourly wage of $16.81 per hour, which equals a yearly salary of roughly $35,000, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
CBS News
May 24, 2012
The bill that ended last August’s standoff over the debt ceiling — when House Republicans held the nation’s creditworthiness hostage for spending cuts — will cause hundreds of thousands of students to face reductions in their Pell Grants or to lose the grants entirely. As the San Jose Mercury News reported today, “Among those who will lose Pell Grants in the summer are at least 65,000 new college students without high school diplomas…Changes in income requirements will reduce or eliminate grants for nearly 300,000 others.” Those cuts also cost the economy 1.8 million jobs, according to estimates from the Economic Policy Institute. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) is already preparing another debt ceiling showdown for this winter.
Think Progress
May 24, 2012
Not only would Ryan’s plan add to the debt, it would also increase the number of people who are looking for a job, resulting in a net loss of 4.1 million jobs over the next two years, according to the Economic Policy Institute:
The Ryan budget would nevertheless immediately enact aggressive spending cuts — particularly to the social safety net — which would reduce employment by 1.3 million jobs in fiscal 2013 and 2.8 million jobs in fiscal 2014, relative to current budget policies.
Think Progress
May 24, 2012
That Bush believes the country needs his thoughts on how to create economic growth is laughable. After all, under his watch, “growth in investment, GDP, and employment all posted their worst performance of any post-war expansion,” while “overall monthly job growth was the worst of any cycle since at least February 1945, and household income growth was negative for the first cycle since tracking began in 1967.” As the Economic Policy Institute found, “between the end of the 2001 recession (2001Q4) and the peak of that expansion (2007Q4), the U.S. economy experienced the worst economic expansion of the post-war era.”
Think Progress
May 17, 2012