In the News
On any given day, Groundwork's analyses, op-eds, reports, and commentary are featured in leading publications and on the most influential news programs and podcasts.
On any given day, Groundwork's analyses, op-eds, reports, and commentary are featured in leading publications and on the most influential news programs and podcasts.
And that gets us to opportunity, which is what the macroeconomic shocks provide. Firms probably did experience real increases in their production costs, which gives them good reason to raise their prices…to a point. But what has been documented by Groundwork Collaborative and separately by Isabella Weber and Evan Wasner is corporate executives openly discussing increasing returns using “pricing power,” which is code for charging more than is needed to offset their costs.
“My biggest takeaway from the incredible success of the labor market recovery from the pandemic recession was that the jobless recovery that followed the Great Recession was a policy choice — a cruel and misguided policy choice,” said Lindsay Owens, the executive director of the liberal think tank Groundwork Collaborative.
Yesterday, the Biden Administration announced new guidelines for corporate mergers and took steps to crack down on junk fees and price gouging in the food industry.
Warren’s former senior economic policy adviser Lindsay Owens, now executive director of the liberal Groundwork Collaborative, notes that the chamber has historically been at odds with Democrats and progressives. “Now their influence is also waning with Republicans,” she says, “which begs the question: What juice do they still have in Washington?”
Rakeen Mabud, chief economist with a group of liberal economics experts known as Groundwork Collaborative, said raising rates could roll back some of the gains made possible by historically low unemployment. “Two months of rising Black unemployment foreshadows disastrous consequences for our labor market if Chair Powell resumes rate hikes this month,” Mabud said.
"The Fed needs to halt rate hikes immediately," said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the think-tank the Groundwork Collaborative. "Their rate hiking campaign has yet to work its way through the system, so we will continue to feel the effects in the coming months. Additional hikes risk pushing the economy into a downturn."
“The Federal Reserve operates on a false premise that we have to sacrifice workers in the name of bringing down inflation. That has proven not to be the case. Inflation is coming down while our economy remains strong."
Progressive economist Rakeen Mabud with the Groundwork Collaborative, no friend of Wall Street, was much blunter: “Today’s record corporate profits mirror what we have been hearing on earnings call after earnings call: Corporations are gleefully reporting that their strategy to burden families with unnecessary price hikes is working.”
“I think what’s really important about the public sector especially is that it’s a uniquely good engine for upward mobility, especially for workers who are discriminated against or have a hard time finding jobs in the private sector,” said Dr. Chris Becker, senior economist and associate director of policy and research at Groundwork Collaborative. “ … the public service sector provides really important services. We value these jobs because they’re really useful to society as well.”
"We've seen a really healthy recovery precisely because of public investment and more money in people's pockets. But that has that has been pushing against the tide of these rate hikes And so we're starting to see the effects of that, and as ever, it's always the folks who are left behind historically that are going to feel the effects of these policy choices first," said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the think-tank the Groundwork Collaborative.