And as calls for better pay amplify among teacher union strikes and educator surveys, a recent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute found teachers’ weekly wages and total compensation worsened over time compared to college-educated professionals who didn’t teach. Public school teachers’ average weekly wages increased by only $29 from 1996 to 2021 when adjusted only for inflation, while the weekly wages of other college graduates rose by $445 in that same period.
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2. Economics has finally recognized the existence of politics. For decades, or centuries even, economics gave no thought to politics. Wages, for example, were determined by a set of market forces, and politics had nothing to do with it. That’s how academics thought, but it’s not how the world works. In the world, workers make what they have the political power to make. That seems obvious to you and me, but economists were (and many still are) deeply resistant to acknowledging this. The book tells the story of how this change came about, through the work of people like Joseph Stiglitz and groups like the Economic Policy Institute. It’s a really important change because it rejects the assumption of classical economics that left alone, the market will find equilibrium. No—the state has to play an evening-out role.
American Prospect September 30, 2022 -
Over the past five years, the average LAUSD teacher earned between $74,000 and $79,000 annually, compared to a salary range of $94,000 to $101,000 for the average bachelor’s degree-holder in Los Angeles, the UTLA study found. Teacher salaries don’t reflect the rate of inflation, the report contends, a conclusion that a recent study from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) also makes. The EPI analysis found that teachers nationwide earn 23.5 percent less than comparable college graduates, while the UTLA study found that its members earned 22 percent less than similarly educated Angelenos during the 2019-20 school year. To make up for this deficit, 28 percent of UTLA educators work another job to supplement their income, with 24.4 percent of teachers who’ve worked for the district for more than 20 years doing so.
The 19th September 30, 2022 -
Rising child care costs is a burden for working families, and if it gets unaffordable, it can keep parents away from the workforce. Also, it could keep children out of early learning programs. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that the average cost of infant care in Pennsylvania is around $12,000.
24/7 Wall Street September 30, 2022 -
When it comes to income inequality, Ohio is a little better than average. It ranked 29th in 2018, with the top 1% of earners getting an average of $859,000 a year and everybody else earning an average of $46,000, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
ABC News 5 September 30, 2022 -
A new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute shows what the Left has always argued: that our best tool in the fight against poverty is redistributive social spending.
In this respect, a new analysis recently published by Asha Banerjee and Ben Zipperer of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) is just the latest addition to a vast body of data demonstrating that poverty is, straightforwardly, a policy choice. Drawing on the latest census data, Banerjee and Zipperer analyze the implications of various income support and pandemic-era programs in 2021 — finding that they protected tens of millions from falling into poverty, contributing to a rate that was lower than before the pandemic.
Not every program in EPI’s report dates from the pandemic. By far the largest impact (unsurprisingly) came from Social Security, which kept an estimated 26.3 million people from poverty in 2021.
But direct stimulus payments, unemployment checks, and tax credits also had a pronounced effect:
For decades, Democratic and Republican politicians alike have hacked away at the universality of various social programs — often, once again, on the absurd grounds that means-testing is more effective. It’s notable, then, that Banerjee and Zipperer find pandemic-era unemployment insurance (UI) benefits kept some 2.3 million out of poverty, one reason being that they did away with many of the restrictive eligibility requirements (the authors, in fact, note that estimates drawing on the existing census data likely understate the extent of UI’s anti-poverty impact, which was quite probably millions more). They conclude:
Given the overwhelming effectiveness of these programs in keeping people out of poverty, it is unconscionable that policymakers have allowed them to expire and added to the stress of low-income families in the years to come.
Banerjee and Zipperer are absolutely right. However, the pandemic — and the various discourse which ensued around particular benefits and credits — also underscored the extent to which the “debate” around the effectiveness (or supposed noneffectiveness) of social expenditure is an illusion.
Jacobin September 30, 2022 -
The Economic Policy Institute shows that more than 60% of Tennessee corporations pay nothing in franchise and excise tax, the state’s corporate income tax.
The Tennessean September 30, 2022 -
“Teachers face myriad issues, including wage degradation,” Seton Hall Professor Christopher Tienken said of the findings. “For example, according to an economic policy institute (EPI) report from August 26, 2022, average weekly teacher wages grew by just $29 when adjusted for inflation, between 1996-2021, compared to $445 for other college graduates over the same period. Dubbed the ‘Teacher pay penalty,’ teachers can make as little as 35 percent less than college-educated people in other professions.”
New Rochelle Patch September 30, 2022 -
Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, called work-at-home “vastly unequal.” Most workers, she told theGrio, continued going into the workplace during the height of the pandemic.
But two other numbers from the report support Gould’s point. The survey found that 35% of workers could work from home five days a week, which means most workers can’t. Moreover, 41% of workers could not work from home because their jobs aren’t conducive to remote work.
Gould and Asfaw each noted that discrimination, both historical and modern-day, plays a role.
“I often have people say, well, women are choosing to work in certain professions or choosing to be in certain jobs,” said Gould, who also studies the gender wage gap. “You can say the same thing about occupational segregation by race. There’s historical discrimination in access to education, promotions, and access to all those jobs” that directly impact the disparities we see today.
“It’s whether or not you have a computer or a broadband Internet subscription,” Gould said. “And certainly there is a very tangible digital divide between black and white households. So certainly whether you have those resources in your community or if you have your resources at home (are) factors that would lead to occupational segregation.”
The Grio September 30, 2022 -
With the recession’s rise, a climate has developed in which Black professionals have frequently been faced with more lay-offs, hiring freezes, reduced sponsorship possibilities, and smaller raises while also experiencing greater unemployment rates and unemployment periods than their white counterparts. For example, while economists maintain that the U.S. labor market has recovered since the pandemic, with overall unemployment decreasing to 3.5%, a 6% boost impacted Black workers (Economic Policy Institute 2021). An outcome which is not surprising given that Black professionals are often the last hired and first fired during times of economic instability.
Black Enterprise September 30, 2022 -
K-12 Dive September 30, 2022