What is feminist economics? A lot of people listening to this show, I think, probably don’t even know that such a discipline or subdiscipline exists. I didn’t know until a few years ago, but I started reading about it and started reading some of Nancy’s work and what she has to say is interesting to me because it fits into this broader category of talking about a new economic paradigm and changes in the economic profession that we have discussed on this show with other guests like Brian Deese, like Heidi Shierholz of Economic Policy Institute. And I think feminist economics in the way it challenges those neoclassical assumptions is an important part of this puzzle.
New Republic
May 18, 2023
“Millions of people are entering their retirement years with insufficient savings to cover basic expenses and medical bills,” the new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) notes. “In response, some policymakers have proposed that older Americans could delay retirement to increase their savings.”
But this ostensible fix “overlooks the large group of older Americans who work in difficult conditions—ranging from the physically demanding to the outright dangerous,” EPI points out. “If older Americans endure difficult conditions that often force earlier exits from the workplace, proposals to delay retirement make little sense.”
Common Dreams
May 18, 2023
The Bureau of Labor Statistics identified three main culprits behind inflation since 2020 — energy price volatility, backlogs resulting from supply-chain issues, and price changes in auto-related industries. Separate pieces of research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute have shown that increased corporate profits have also been contributing to inflation.
Investment News
May 18, 2023
Thus far, most of the regulatory scrutiny has focused on the possibility that reduced competition would mean higher grocery prices for shoppers. But a report released this month by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reveals that the deal could have a major impact on the wages of grocery store workers. According to the EPI report, the proposed merger would “reduce the number of outside employment options available to workers, lowering grocery store workers’ annual wages by a total of $334 million.” That works out to about $450 less annually per worker, which is a significant reduction for a workforce already hovering at or below the poverty line.
Popular Information
May 17, 2023
Thanks to inflation and congressional inaction, the minimum wage now has less purchasing power than any point in time since 1956, according to the Economic Policy Institute. When Congress fails to raise the federal minimum wage despite skyrocketing costs of living, the job falls on state and local governments. At least 30 states and 50 cities and counties have raised the minimum wage past $7.25.
Truthout
May 17, 2023
The Economic Policy Institute, a research group, said the difference between teacher pay and pay for college-educated people in other professions reached a record 23.5 percent in 2021.
Voice of America
May 17, 2023
Now, none of them is saying the Federal Reserve has achieved that elusive soft landing in its effort to balance interest rate increases with economic growth. But Shierholz at the Economic Policy Institute said so far, that does seem to be where we’re headed.
“We see inflation coming down and unemployment not yet going up,” she said.
Marketplace
May 12, 2023
The number of kids employed in direct violation of existing child labor laws, analysts at the Economic Policy Institute this past March reported, has soared 283 percent since 2015 — and 37 percent in just the last year alone. Last week brought the alarming news that three Kentucky-based McDonald’s franchises had kids as young as 10 working at 62 stores in four different states. Some of these under-working age children were working as late as 2 a.m.
Inequality.org
May 12, 2023
“I think that this recovery was tremendous compared to any recovery in recent history because of the scale of the investments that were made by policymakers,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, pointing to the child tax credit as one example that helped fuel the strong recovery. “So I think the incredible bounceback that we saw in employment and wage growth was driven directly from, in large part, to the kinds of investments that policymakers made in things like shoring up the unemployment insurance system, making that stronger, making it a better safety net for many workers.”
States Newsroom
May 12, 2023