Inflation is high and so are corporate profits. NPR’s A Martinez talks to Josh Bivens of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, about whether corporations are benefiting from rising prices.
NPR Morning Edition
May 13, 2022
The economy was adding about 200,000 jobs every month up to the lockdowns of 2020, meaning there are another 6.3 million jobs that would’ve been created had the pandemic not happened, Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said in a tweet. If job growth continues at its current rate, however, those payrolls could be recouped by the end of 2022, she added.
Business Insider
May 10, 2022
“Black unemployment has been trending down pretty steadily over the last six months or so, and it’s now down below 6% for the first time in this recovery,” Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said.
“That’s certainly a positive sign, but it’s important to remember that it’s significantly higher than any other group,” she added.
CNBC
May 10, 2022
April’s growth is positive — but it’s “not yet mission accomplished,” noted Economic Policy Institute President Heidi Shierholz. There’s a “huge hole” in the labor market, but “that gap is closing rapidly,” she said.
“No matter how you look at it,” added Economic Policy Institute’s Elise Gould, “nominal wage growth is moderating (and decidedly not accelerating).” “We can keep labor markets tight without feeding inflation,” she continued.
The Week
May 10, 2022
Despite that earnings gap, college enrollment has fallen in the last two years. Elise Gould, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute, points to what she called a sudden, pandemic-induced recession, as one of the reasons for the drop in enrollment.
While recessions can be good times for people to go back to school, get degrees and find better jobs, COVID-19 flipped that on its head.
Gould also said the pandemic added disproportionate roadblocks for Black, Hispanic and lower-income individuals who may not have been able to enroll or stay in college.
“You need to have money, you need to have time, you need to have other resources to be able to make those kinds of investments,” Gould said. “And that’s just not accessible to many people across the country.”
Wisconsin Public Radio
May 10, 2022
The world hasn’t sat still since February 2020. The working-age population grew during the pandemic—with immigrants and new graduates, says Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute.
“We’re about 3.5 million potential jobs short,” said Gould.
She says if the economy keeps up the current pace of job creation, “I think it’s absolutely realistic for us to get there by the end of this year.”
NPR Marketplace
May 10, 2022
Inflation is high and so are corporate profits. NPR’s A Martinez talks to Josh Bivens of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, about whether corporations are benefiting from rising prices.
NPR Morning Edition
May 10, 2022
Paying teachers more is a simple method to solving the shortfall, a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute stated.
Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, state and local public education employment — ranging from K-12 teachers to school bus drivers to school custodians — have fallen by nearly 5% overall, the EPI authors noted.
Yahoo Finance
May 6, 2022
Features interview with Josh Bivens.
Scripps National News
May 6, 2022
The Washington Post
May 6, 2022
The NEA used the Economic Policy Institute’s family budget calculator to determine whether support staff make a living wage and found that on average, these employees would not be able to live in a metropolitan area and support themselves and one child without government assistance or another adult’s income.
Education Week
May 6, 2022
A 2021 report by the Economic Policy Institute said unionization in the cannabis industry could lead to safer jobs that pay between $2,810 to $8,690 more per year than in what it describes as a “low-road scenario,” where cannabis workers would have few to no workplace protections. Workers at unionized cannabis businesses also enjoyed more workplace benefits, including health care, paid leave and fairer scheduling practices.
Oregon Business
May 6, 2022
The Economic Policy Institute also found that Latinas earn 57 cents and Black women earn 65 cents for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic men.
ABC News
May 6, 2022
As a result, economists across the spectrum wonder if the Fed can control this bout of price spikes. Lawrence Mishel, a distinguished fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, says, “There’s a lot of reasons to think that inflation is transitory. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be two months, it could be a year, but it’s not going to be, you know, 4 or 5% a year for the next five years.” Leaders at the Fed have a long-term target of about 2% inflation.
CNBC
May 6, 2022
As Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute notes, if one producer is temporarily sidelined, or otherwise forced to cut back production, this provides opportunities for competitors that are not as hampered to jump in with price increases.
In These Times
May 6, 2022
California parents need to cough up roughly $17,000 a year to pay for child care, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
EdSource
May 6, 2022
On average, unionized workers are paid over 11% more than their nonunionized counterparts, according to a study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Kinder noted that the difference in wages between unionized and non-union drivers was evident in their analysis for companies like Amazon and FedEx (FDX).
Yahoo Money
May 6, 2022
The Economic Policy Institute, and other sources tracking job data, say Black unemployment in California remains higher than the statewide average.
Sacramento Observer
May 6, 2022
Dave Kamper, who researches labor as a senior state policy coordinator at the Economic Policy Institute, says “the number one tactic in the playbook of an anti-union employer is to play for time.” “A lot of these steps are handled by everyone just kind of agreeing to go ahead and take the next step,” he says of union certification. “But then if one side decides to back off of that agreement, you start all over again. And if your goal is simply to buy time, an employer has oodles of options.”
DCist
May 6, 2022
From 1980 to 2019, according to the Economic Policy Institute, there has been a continual increase in pay rates of high earners, graduates and professionals but low earners remained flat.
ABC News
May 6, 2022
Currently, about 63 percent of Starbucks employees make under $15 an hour, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute. It’s unclear how that percentage will change with union members and unionizing workers excluded from the pay raise.
Truthout
May 6, 2022
By 1990, voter indignation at the rising CEO-to-worker pay gap swelled to the point that Bill Clinton made it a major promise of his “Putting People First” campaign that if he was elected, he would put an end to it. Clinton got elected in 1993 and immediately said he would keep his promise. Let’s look at a graph prepared by the Economic Policy Institute that shows the rise in CEO to worker-pay ratio from the mid-1960s to 2018. Notice how after Clinton’s reform, the ratio skyrocketed.
People’s World
May 6, 2022
In the video, Pendleton cites the 2021 Economic Policy Institute report, which found that in 2020, CEOs of the top 350 U.S. firms made $24.2 million on average.
Fortune
May 6, 2022
“While much has changed” since the Haymarket bombing, arrests and frame-up of pro-worker activists in Chicago in 1886, “several core dysfunctions of that older economic system persist,” the Economic Policy Institute says.
People’s World
May 6, 2022
Barnette also has concerns about the racial wealth gap when it comes to Black and brown women. The Economic Policy Institute says a full-time Black worker earns 20% less than a full-time white worker.
Spectrum News
May 6, 2022
But college enrollment has fallen since 2020. Elise Gould with the Economic Policy Institute says the pandemic added new roadblocks for many minority and lower income potential students who may not have been able to come up with tuition.
Wisconsin Public Radio
May 6, 2022
According to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank, a family with two children, age four and eight, is projected to pay an average of $16,659 on child care in 2022. This amount varies across the country, however. In some states, child care costs are far lower than the national average, while in others, families are paying thousands more.
24/7 Wall St.
May 6, 2022
But the reduction in supply was met with increased demand as Americans started purchasing durable goods to replace the services they used prior to the pandemic, said Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute.
CNET
May 6, 2022