Tag Archives: epi

Another Look at Young High School Grads

by CarsonAmaya3891 Posted on May 12, 2016

Mother Jones

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Over at the Economic Policy Institute, I’m in hot water over my question about the unemployment rate for young high school grads:

Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum seems to dislike a New York Times article calling job prospects for young high school graduates “grim.” Along the way, he directs an odd bit of unprovoked snark at us….The reason we get 17.8 percent while Kevin gets 11.2 percent when looking at unemployment rates for young high school graduates is pretty obvious: we’re looking at 17-20 year old high school graduates who are not enrolled in further schooling while he is looking at 20-24 year old high-school graduates (no college).

For the record, I meant for my snark to be aimed not at EPI, but at the Times. Their reporter should have done at least a cursory check of standard BLS data to see if it backed up her story, but she didn’t. That said, let’s take a closer look at the EPI data.

I can’t quite recreate their methodology, but that doesn’t matter. As usual, I’m only asking, “Compared to what?” In this case the question is, “How does unemployment among young high school grads compare to the normal rate before the recession?” Here’s the EPI chart:

I’m just eyeballing this, but it looks like the pre-crisis average was a little over 15 percent. Today it’s 18 percent. In other words, about one-fifth higher than normal. That’s roughly the same as 6 percent compared to 5 percent.

So if the headline unemployment rate were at 6 percent, would you call that “grim”? I wouldn’t. I’d say there’s certainly room for improvement, but it’s not too bad. Ditto for young high school grads. There’s clearly room for further improvement, but the current numbers don’t suggest an ongoing crisis. Things are very much getting back to normal.

I realize that my hobbyhorse about the economy might be getting annoying. And I sympathize with everyone on the left who wants to make sure we don’t declare victory and give up on further economic gains, especially for the working and middle classes. At the same time, we should also respect what the numbers are telling us. And by all the usual conventional measures, the economy is is pretty good shape. For now, at least, the recession really is largely over.

POSTSCRIPT: Just to make sure I’m as clear as possible, I’ll repeat what I said a couple of days ago: what the numbers tell us is that the current state of the economy as conventionally measured is pretty good compared to normal. This has nothing to do with larger, structural critiques of the economy. If you think that tax rates are too high or wages are too stagnant or income inequality is out of control, those are entirely different issues. These kinds of critiques have very little to do with how well or badly the economy is performing at the moment.

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Another Look at Young High School Grads

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Here’s How Many McDonald’s Workers Aren’t Getting Raises

by GretchenGatliff Posted on April 2, 2015

Mother Jones

On Wednesday, McDonald’s announced that starting this July, it will increase wages for the 90,000 workers who are directly employed by one of the company’s restaurants. The plan is to bring the current hourly wage up by $1; the average McDonald’s employee will make $9.90 by July and $10 by 2016. Benefits like paid vacation time will be available for employees who have worked for the company for more than a year.

The raise, however, only applies to employees of the actual restaurant. The 750,000 workers employed by franchises, which make up 90 percent of McDonald’s restaurants, are not included in this wage hike.

“The fact that a $1.00 raise for 90,000 workers is headline news is evidence of how low the bar has been set,” the Economic Policy Institute noted in a statement. “All workers should receive regular wage increases as productivity rises, and yet despite rising productivity, Americans’ wages have been stagnant for three-and-a-half decades.”

The battle over meager fast food pay has been in the spotlight since November 2012, when the Fight for $15 campaign began with 200 New York fast food workers talking part in a walk out. Since then, the group, which protests for a minimum wage of $15 and the right to organize, has grown into a national movement. This past September, more than 400 individuals were arrested in 32 cities during a Fight for $15 multi-state strike.

Much of the frustration over wage inequity stems from the gaps between worker pay and the large sums that CEOs of fast food companies are raking in. In 2013, the EPI published a report which found that those at the helm of the nation’s top 25 restaurant corporations were bringing in an average of 721 times more than the average minimum wage worker.

“It’s a picture of uncontrolled greed,” EPI vice president Ross Eisenbrey told my colleague Jaeah Lee this past summer. “How can it be that the CEOs are making more in half a day than many of their workers are making in an entire year—and yet they can’t afford to raise the pay of those workers?”

The answer many franchise owners give when asked about wage hikes is that their profit margins are too thin to support any employee pay increases. It’s worth noting, though, that in Denmark, the base rate for fast food workers is $20 an hour. This past fall New York Times reporters Liz Alderman and Steven Greenhouse wondered: “If Danish chains can pay $20 an hour, why can’t those in the United States pay the $15 an hour that many fast-food workers have been clamoring for?”

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Here’s How Many McDonald’s Workers Aren’t Getting Raises

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In the Restaurant Biz, It Pays To Be a Man

by BrendanMauger Posted on August 28, 2014

Mother Jones

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Via Wonkblog, here’s a chart showing the pay gap between men and women in the restaurant industry. It comes from a recently released EPI report, and as you can see, not only are men better paid in virtually every category, but the premium goes up for the highest paying jobs. Bussers and cashiers are paid nearly the same regardless of gender. But when you move up to cooks, bartenders, and managers, the premium ranges from 10-20 percent.

This data isn’t conclusive. There are other reasons besides gender for pay gaps, and the EPI report lists several of them. Whites make more than blacks. High school grads make more than dropouts. Older workers make more than younger ones. You’d need to control for all this and more to get a more accurate picture of the gender gap.

But in a way, that misses the point. There are lots of reasons for the gender gap in pay. Some is just plain discrimination. Some is because women take off more time to raise children. Some is because women are encouraged to take different kinds of jobs. But all of these are symptoms of the same thing. In a myriad of ways, women still don’t get a fair shake.

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In the Restaurant Biz, It Pays To Be a Man

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