EPI in the news

• It’s Not Avocado Toast But Stagnant Wages Dimming American Dream

  It’s Not Avocado Toast But Stagnant Wages Dimming American Dream

  NBC News/Ben Popken

  “It certainly means that families are going to have a harder time making ends meet,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a DC-based nonpartisan think tank. “We see a relatively slow growth in wages compared to faster rising expenses; we see that in homes, healthcare, childcare, many of the necessary expenses families pay.”

  NBC News | June 6, 2017
• Silicon Valley’s H-1B Secret Bloomberg/Joshua Brustein

  Silicon Valley’s H-1B Secret

  Bloomberg/Joshua Brustein

  For years, the H-1B visa program has been a key public policy priority for Silicon Valley — and a source of broad controversy. Each year, the government grants 65,000 of the temporary visas through a random lottery, with another 20,000 set aside for applicants with advanced degrees. The visas are good for three years, and can be extended beyond that. There were about 460,000 people working in the country on H-1B visas in 2013, according to an estimate by the Economic Policy Institute. The American technology industry argues the visa program is a vital way to attract foreign-born workers with rare technical skills. But critics decry the visa program as a way for outsourcing companies to undercut the American labor market by paying low wages to mostly Indian-born workers.

  Bloomberg | June 6, 2017
• How Wide Is the Wage Gap Between Fast-Food CEOs and Their Workers?

   

  As discussions of wage hikes and income inequality rage on, the pay gap between fast-food CEOs and their employees appears to be widening. The Economic Policy Institute shows that in 1970, American CEOs (not limited to fast-food industries) made only 30 times as much as the average employee. Today, they make more than 300 times as much in total compensation (not limited to base salary), which is still lower than 731 times for the CEOs in our analysis.

  Eater | June 6, 2017
• Why the highly coveted visa that changed my life is now reviled in America

  Why the highly coveted visa that changed my life is now reviled in America

  CNN/Moni Basu

  But I also read an Economic Policy Institute analysis that found American colleges graduate 50% more students in engineering and computer and information science than are hired in those fields each year. Read the EPI analysis

  CNN Money | June 5, 2017
• Congressional GOP Looks to ‘Rig’ Union Voting System

  Congressional GOP Looks to ‘Rig’ Union Voting System

  Rewire/Nicole Knight

  Celine McNicholas, labor counsel with the Economic Policy Institute, said some of Trump’s proposals are a departure from the traditional Republican playbook. “What you have to look at here is the significance of the cuts,” McNicholas told Rewire. “The 20 percent cut to the Department of Labor is shameful.” The budget funnels an additional $6 million to the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS), which monitors union finances, while it imposes a 6 percent cut on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which enforces workers’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act. (Celine quoted throughout)

  Rewire | June 2, 2017
• U.S. job market stumbles in May, adding just 138,000 jobs

  U.S. job market stumbles in May, adding just 138,000 jobs

  The Washington Post/Ana Swanson

  “The unemployment rate fell for all the wrong reasons,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “The slight drop in the unemployment rate is due to would-be workers leaving the labor force and not getting jobs.”

  The Washington Post | June 2, 2017
• U.S. jobless rate falls to lowest level in 16 years

  U.S. jobless rate falls to lowest level in 16 years

  CBS Moneywatch/Irina Ivanova

  “[T]he slight drop in the unemployment rate is due to would-be workers leaving the labor force, not getting jobs,” Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote on Friday.

  CBS Moneywatch | June 2, 2017

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