As much as investors love a good earnings report, Corporate America’s cash machine has disproportionately fueled the inflationary boom. A study by Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, found that as price pressures were cranking up in 2021, fattening company profit margins accounted for more than half the increase. Labor costs contributed less than 8% — a flip of the dynamic that held from 1979 to 2019.
Financial Advisor
November 4, 2022
Moreover, today’s inflation is very different from the stagflation of the 1970s. Then, labor unions were strong; now, they are nearly extinct. Wages aren’t keeping up with rising prices, much less driving them. Even Fed officials admit that today’s inflation is driven largely by the notorious supply chain disruptions attending the rapid opening of economies from the Covid shutdown, by the war in Ukraine and Russian sanctions that roiled gas and food supply, by the ravages of extreme weather, including droughts across the US and China—and by corporations’ using the crisis to pocket record profits. An analysis of the Economic Policy Institute showed that profit markups accounted for more than half of price hikes and wage increases less than one-10th.
The Nation
November 4, 2022
Our new series, “People-Side Economics,” expands on these perspectives, exposing the bias and half-truths we hear every day, and bringing ideas we can use in organizing. In this third installment of the series, Economic Policy Institute President Heidi Shierholz talks with Convergence editorial board member Stephanie Luce about what does—and doesn’t—cause inflation, and how worker power plays a part in fighting it.
Convergence
October 28, 2022
Economists use an “employment multiplier” to calculate the number of indirect jobs supported by a worker, and according to the independent Economic Policy Institute, mining has an employment multiplier of 3.9, meaning this state’s 20,800 mining and logging jobs (piled together again for convenience’s sake) may support 81,120 other jobs, for a total of 101,920. That’s not inconsequential, but it’s also not 134,000.
LA Progressive
October 28, 2022
Nationwide, families spend an estimated $1 trillion in Social Security benefits each year, according to figures from the National Committee to Support and Preserve Medicare, while economists with the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute have argued expanding social security benefits by raising taxes on the rich could have an even more pronounced economic impact.
Newsweek
October 28, 2022
Mecklenburg is the most unequal county in North Carolina as the top 1% make more than 30 times the bottom 99%, data from the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute show.
WCNC Charlotte
October 28, 2022
While women in the Badger State are also concerned about the rising cost of groceries and gas prices, we know that issues like paid family and medical leave and child care are critical economic considerations for working Wisconsin families. Child care is expensive. The average cost for an infant to attend child care for one year is $12,567, or $1,047 per month, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Cap Times
October 28, 2022
Republicans are blaming Biden for inflation. But according to a recent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, enormous corporate profits are behind 53% of the higher prices Americans are paying for gas, groceries and other essentials.
Boulder Weekly
October 28, 2022
“That’s where face-to-face services like hospitality start to take the hit,” said Josh Bivens, the research director at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “Recessions can have big multiplier effects. Layoffs typically start in construction and then radiate onward, and things can get pretty bad if you have a big spiral.”
“It’s one of the reasons I’m so worried about the Fed potentially overshooting, that we just won’t do that much to help people since we’re told that helping people too generously is what got us into this mess,” said Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute. “I think that’s wrong, but I’m still totally worried about this dynamic.” Bivens also warned that if Republicans control Congress, it might be in their interest to prolong economic hardship ahead of the next presidential election.
VOX
October 28, 2022