The American people need an economic agenda that will spur growth, reduce insecurity, and provide broadly shared prosperity. Drawing upon some of the best informed and most innovative experts, the Agenda for Shared Prosperity will advance an economic program that is comprehensive, understandable, and workable. For more information regarding the scope of EPI's policy initiative, read the entire project overview and a list of topics. See what others have written about the Agenda for Shared Prosperity in the media.
The Agenda's next event, Family Policy,
will be held on Thursday, May 24. Rep.
Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), a senior Democrat on the Appropriations
Committee and the sponsor of the Healthy Families Act, which
requires employers to provide at least 7 days a year that can
be used for sick leave, will be the keynote speaker. The event
will also feature Heidi Hartman from the Institute
for Women's Policy Research, who will present a paper outlining
a comprehensive work-family policy for the U.S. Janet
Gornick, professor of Political Science at Baruch
College, the Graduate Center of the City University of New
York, and Associate Director of the Luxembourg Income Study,
will present a paper on the European, Japanese and U.S. experience
regulating work hours to allow a better work-family balance.
Check our events page for details
on this and other Agenda for Shared Prosperity forums.
Globalization
Globalization is being mismanaged: workers pay the costs while the benefits go to multinational corporations. The issue is not, however, about whether we should be part of a global economy, but about the rules that should govern that economy. Former EPI President proposes a comprehensive strategy that includes policies to rebalance trade, to invest in new technologies that generate high-quality domestic manufacturing employment, and rules for the global economy that would benefit working people in both developed and developing countries.
Health Care
The United States is the only country in the developed world that does not guarantee access to health care as a right of citizenship. Ironically, the United States spends more as a share of its economy on health care than any other nation, yet all this spending has failed to buy Americans health security. Jacob Hacker's plan would extend coverage to all Americans while creating an effective framework for controlling medical costs and improving health care provision.
Labor and the Economy
One of the most important reasons that the benefits of economic growth have not been broadly shared is that U.S. labor law does not protect the right of workers to organize unions. argues that the decline in unions squeezes the middle class, raises inequality, hurts U.S. competitiveness, and undermines democratic values. Richard Freeman concludes, based on results of a comprehensive survey, that . These papers present powerful evidence in support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
Immigration
In this series of Briefing Papers, analyzes the failure of past efforts at immigration reform and offers a comprehensive mix of policies that could serve the best interests of the United States and other countries, especially Mexico. Ron Hira argues that the vast expansion of the H-1B program passed by the U.S. Senate last year will, if signed into law, lead to more offshore outsourcing of jobs, displacement of American technology workers, decreased wages and job opportunities for those same workers, and the discouragement of young people from entering science and engineering fields. Mary Bauer exposes the systematic abuses guest workers experience in the United States.
A New Social Contract
The implicit social contract that governed work for many years—the norm that hard work, loyalty, and good performance will be rewarded with fair and increasing wages, dignity, and security—has broken down and been replaced by a norm in which employers give primacy to stock price and short-term gains often at the expense of America's workers. In their Briefing Paper, with forward-looking policies and labor market institutions tailored to today's workforce, families, and economy.