The University of Massachusetts Amherst

Category: PERI

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Alums PERI

Occupations ideal for unionizing

Jeannette Wicks-Lim

Jeannette Wicks-Lim ’05 PhD and assistant research professor at the Political Economy Research Institute, is cited in a report on the occupations most likely to gain from unionization including nursing aides, office clerks, accounting clerks and janitors. (Suite101.com, 5/30/11)

Types of Jobs that are Ideal for Unionizing
Suite101.com

Most of the job growth that will occur in the United States by the year 2016 will be in low-paying occupations. Unions could improve overall job quality.

Unions have historically existed to protect workers from unsafe working conditions, unfair treatment, low pay and insufficient benefits. According to AFL-CIO, one of the nation’s largest organized unions, over 36 percent of public employees are unionized compared to only 6.9 percent of private sector workers.

This is primarily due to the fact that private sector labor laws do not prohibit employers from using intimidation and harassment to prevent unionization. While educators continue to represent a large portion of unionized workers, according to a 2009 educational study written by Jeannette Wicks-Lim at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the following four occupations stand to gain the greatest benefit from union representation: nursing aids/personal home health care aids, general office clerks, janitors, and accounting clerks.

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PERI Pollin

Pollin participates in UMass Amherst/Boston Globe public policy forum

Robert Pollin & Jeffrey Thompson (photo by Jim Davis, Globe Staff)

UMass Amherst and the Boston Globe launched a new public policy series titled, “Recession & Recovery: A Forum on Smart Policies for Sustainable Growth,” on Monday, March 28 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. Panelists included Robert Pollin, UMass Amherst economics professor and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute, Jeffrey Thompson of the Political Economy Research Institute, Lisa M. Lynch, dean and Maurice B. Hexter professor of Economic Policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University and Eric Rosengren, president and CEO at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Rosengren says rising food and energy prices, caused by turmoil in the Middle East and increased prices in wheat due to poor harvests in Russia and Australia, could weaken the national economy. Pollin takes this further asserting that gas prices have soared because of a speculative bubble, noting that the commodities market is still unregulated. All four panelists agreed that unemployment, with rates still near 9% nationally, is the fundamental issue facing the economy, more so than the deficit. Rosengren feels that the deficit should be addressed long-term, “when we get closer to full-employment.” (Globe, 3/29/11; iMarketNews.com, Reuters, 3/28/11)

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PERI Pollin

Pollin discusses State of the Union address on The Real News Network

Prof. Robert PollinRobert Pollin, UMass Amherst economics professor and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), and Bill Fletcher, executive editor of The Black Commentator, analyze President Obama’s State of the Union address in a a recent interview on The Real News Network.

Pollin, a consultant to the Department of Energy, was pleased with the emphasis that President Obama put on research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology.  While he wasn’t completely specific on how these investments would be funded, the President did mention eliminating “the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies.”

Both Pollin and Fletcher agree, however, that the President’s speech was vague on many points and also too optimistic with regard to the economy.  In particular, they are both concerned with the extreme measures that states are considering due to severe budget shortfalls.  The measures, which include declaring bankruptcy and breaking pension fund obligations, were not mentioned in the State of the Union. 

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Alums PERI

Wicks-Lim: We Need a (Green) Jobs Program

Jeanette Wicks-Lim

Jeannette Wicks-Lim ’05 PhD, Political Economy Research Institute, writes a column about the need for a green jobs program to provide employment and to counter pollution and reliance on fossil fuels. (Dollars & Sense, Sept./Oct. issue)

We Need a (Green) Jobs Program
Clean-energy investment would promote job growth for a wide swath of the U.S. workforce.
By Jeannette Wicks-Lim

Fourteen months of an unemployment rate at or near 10% clearly calls for the federal government to take a lead role in job creation. The White House should push its clean-energy agenda as a jobs program but steer clear of all the hype about “green-collar” jobs. Green-collar jobs are widely perceived as job opportunities accessible only to an elite segment of the U.S. workforce—those with advanced degrees, such as environmental engineers, lab technicians, and research scientists. Such jobs are inaccessible to the 52% of unemployed workers with no college experience. The truth is, however, that clean-energy investments could serve as a powerful engine for job growth for a wide swath of the U.S. workforce.

My colleagues at the Political Economy Research Institute and I examined a clean-energy program that includes making buildings more energy efficient, expanding and improving mass transit, updating the national electric grid, and developing each of three types of renewable energy sources: wind, solar, and biomass fuels. Here’s what we found.  Read more…

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Ash Boyce PERI UMass Economics

PERI report, Toxic 100, in USA Today article

Koch Industries, cited last spring as one of the top 10 air polluters in the U.S. in a report issued by the Political Economy Research Institute, is among 2,000 companies that will be reimbursed 80 percent of the cost of health insurance for early retirees, according to the Obama administration. David and Charles Koch, the owners of the company, were reported by The New Yorker to be bankrolling political opponents of Obama, including the “tea party” movement. (USA Today, 8/31/10)

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Ash Boyce PERI

PERI report, Toxic 100, cited in The New Yorker

Toxic 100 Air Polluters, a Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) report co-authored by Michael Ash and James Boyce, identifies the top U.S. air polluters among the world’s largest corporations.  This report names Koch Industries among the top ten offenders, a fact cited in a report on the Koch brothers which appeared this week in The New Yorker. (The New Yorker, 8/30/10)

Covert Operations
The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.
by Jane Mayer

The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States.
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Folbre PERI Pollin

Folbre blogs “Grow Green Jobs”

Nancy Folbre

Nancy Folbre, economics professor, writing her weekly column in the Economix blog at the New York Times, discusses how to boost the sagging national economy by promoting green jobs. She notes that her UMass Amherst colleagues Robert Pollin, James Heintz and Heidi Garrett-Peltier have outlined how energy conservation in public buildings and private homes can generate jobs and save energy. (New York Times, 7/12/10)

July 12, 2010
Grow Green Jobs
By NANCY FOLBRE

But green jobs are definitely on the rise in the United States, as they are elsewhere. A recent Pew Foundation report estimates that the number of them grew nearly two and a half times faster than overall jobs between 1998 and 2007.

And as Professor Pollin and his co-authors James Heintz and Heidi Garrett-Peltier have shown, enormous scope remains for improvements in energy conservation in public buildings and private homes. Doing energy audits and retrofitting insulation require modest training, but no high-tech expertise. Such jobs could be widely distributed across communities.

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Epstein PERI

Epstein and D’Arista comment on financial regulation efforts

Gerald Epstein, economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) and Jane D’Arista, PERI, offer comments on efforts in Congress to bring more regulation and transparency to derivative trading by large banks. They support such moves and say it is a key to meaningful reform of the financial sector. (Firedoglake.com, 5/10/10)

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Crotty Epstein Graduate PERI

Research by Epstein, Crotty & Levina supports breaking up large banks

A column promoting breaking up large banks cites research done by Gerald Epstein, James Crotty and Iren Levina, Political Economy Research Institute, on financial industry concentration. Their research shows that between 1993 and 2009, the top five commercial banks in the U.S. went from having 16.56 percent of total bank assets to 45.23 percent. The top five investment banks had 36.43 percent of overall revenue in 1993 and 65.61 percent by 2009, they say. (Huffington Post, 5/5/10)

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Ash Boyce PERI UMass Economics

Ash and Boyce comment on release of Toxic 100 Air Polluters

The latest list of corporate polluters provides data about who is most at risk. (Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images)

 UMass Amherst economics professors and co-directors of PERI’s CTIP (Corporate Toxics Information Project), Michael Ash and James Boyce, discuss the release of  Toxic 100 Air Polluters, which includes the names of the biggest corporate air polluters in the U.S.  This list provides various details on the quantity and toxicity of the chemicals released.  It also includes the percentage of minority and low income people that are being exposed to the toxins.  “People have a right to know about toxic hazards to which they are exposed. Legislators need to understand the effects of pollution on their constituents,” Boyce said in a press release.  Ash agrees noting that by “making this information available, we are building on the achievements of the right-to-know movement… Our goal is to engender public participation in environmental decision making, and to help residents translate the right to know into the right to clean air.” (The Epoch Times, 4/9/2010)