The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) studies public policy that impacts low- and middle-income working Americans. They believe that “every working person deserves a good job with fair pay, affordable health care, and retirement security”. To that end, they do research on issues that include living standards, public investment and trade and globalization that they present to policymakers at the national, state and local levels. This site provides the most current analysis of the interplay between big picture policy issues and the resulting living conditions of average citizens. The works of the EPI are quoted in tens of thousands of articles, books and dissertations.
The tab labelled Areas of Research takes the user to 16 broad areas such as minimum wage, inequality and poverty, and trade and globalization. Below these broad topics are links to about 100 narrower topics, from carbon tax to Ferguson to young workers. Clicking on trade agreements leads to a number of different blog pieces, reports and economic snapshots, many of them about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The blog pieces link out to significant reports, such as, in one instance, a report from the International Trade Commission, a Center for Economic and Policy Research paper and an Economic Policy Institute Briefing Paper.
Another link takes the user directly to publications. The default view is a listing of all publications starting with the most recent (on the day I searched, there were several items from the past week, including one report, one economic snapshot, one news item and a policy memo). One of the items is a commentary of a recently released report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on state unemployment rates. The EPI warns readers not to be overly optimistic and points them to another document that demonstrates statistically that while unemployment is low, people of colour continue to experience very high levels of unemployment and a number of people have despaired getting work again. An interactive map allows the reader to select a racial group, point to a state and get comparisons. For example, the unemployment rate for Texas for whites is 3.5% but 6.5% for blacks.
Another feature easily accessed from EPI’s homepage using the Resources tab is Economic Indicators. Here, the user can easily find employment rates (by race and ethnicity), analysis of those workers who are not counted in the official unemployment rate, the GDP, income and poverty and health insurance coverage.
The website can also be searched by simply typing a keyword or by doing an advanced search, by choosing from a topic or author and a document type. Searching for Trade and Globalization and Report, seven substantial works are found, ranging from 15 to 63 pages. Other document types include testimony. Some of the testimony presented recently from EPI include the impact of federal rules on jobs and wages, the impact of high-skilled immigration on US workers and the District of Columbia’s Minimum Wage Act of 2016.
This website will help any scholar trying to understand the complex ways that policy interacts with daily lives and provides data that tell a troubling story of the economic status of working folk in America.
