EPI experts are often asked, “what really could be done to help workers?” In the wake of the election, EPI developed A real agenda for working people that lays out concrete steps to return prosperity to working-class Americans. The agenda provides a yardstick with which to measure the effectiveness of President-elect Trump’s policy agenda in boosting wages for working people. EPI’s agenda shows what Trump would do if he were serious about creating jobs, raising wages, and fixing our rigged economy. Please share it via Facebook and Twitter.
In a new report, EPI’s Josh Bivens and Hunter Blair provide a series of recommendations for crafting effective public investments including in infrastructure but also investments in child care, education, and health care. Bivens and Blair also make the case that increased public investment that was permanent and subject to public oversight and accountability would deliver large and broad-based benefits.
In a new report, EPI’s Ben Zipperer critiques a widely cited paper by Jeffrey Clemens and Michael Wither, which claims that the national minimum wage increases from 2007 to 2009 led to job losses in states that raised their minimum wages to meet the new national requirement. Zipperer shows that Clemens and Wither’s analysis fails to adequately account for the employment declines from the Great Recession and that once the geographical and industrial effects of the recession are factored in, the last set of federal minimum wage increases had little-to-no effect on the employment levels of low-wage workers.
In a new report, EPI’s Monique Morrissey shows that, despite claims to the contrary, public-sector workers in Connecticut are compensated about the same as their private-sector counterparts, with college-educated workers paid less and non-college-educated workers paid more. This saves taxpayers money on safety net programs while ensuring a decent standard of living for less educated workers.
