Head of Think Tank EPI to Step Down

It looks like 2017 is shaping up to be the a major year for turnover of think tank presidents.

New presidents are expected at both the Brookings Institution and Heritage Foundation, and now, Lawrence Mishel, the longtime president of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), will step down at the end of 2017, according to the think tank.

A search committee led by EPI's Board of Directors will work to find a new president.  Mishel will remain at EPI as a senior economist.

Here is more from a press release:

Mishel first joined EPI in 1987 as research director, and assumed the role of president in 2002. In the three decades he has been with the organization, Mishel helped build EPI into the nation’s premier research organization focused on the labor market, inequality, and living standards for low- and middle-income families. He was a coauthor on every edition of EPI’s flagship publication, the State of Working America, a cornerstone of EPI research that was published every other year from 1988 to 2012.

In late March, EPI Vice President Ross Eisenbrey announced his retirement after 15 years at the think tank.  EPI said that in anticipation of Eisenbrey's retirement, it has hired two labor lawyers (Celine McNicholas and Marine von Wilpert) who will be a part of the Perkins Project on Worker Rights and Wages.

The Worker Rights and Wages Policy Watch, an online tracker providing up-to-the-minute updates on policy actions that affect working people, was recently launched under that Project.

In related EPI news, former Obama Administration Secretary of Labor Tom Perez has joined the think tank's Board of Directors.  He joins three other former labor secretaries on the board - Robert Reich and Alexis Herman (Clinton Administration) and Ray Marshall (Carter Administration).

Meet Trump's New Favorite Think Tank

Presumed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has a new favorite think tank, and it is not who you think.  You may have guessed something like the Heritage Foundation or the Hudson Institute or even the Hoover Institution.  Wrong, wrong, and wrong.

Trump's new favorite think tank is the liberal, union-backed think tank Economic Policy Institute (EPI).  No folks, we are not making this up.  On June 28 Trump gave an economic and trade speech which frequently cited statistics from EPI.  In fact, in a footnoted version of the speech, he cited EPI 20 times.  There was nary a single citation from a conservative think tank, which he also relies on from time to time.

The only other think tanks mentioned in the citations were the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) and the conservative Tax Foundation, which each had one citation.

EPI, of course, it not too keen on being linked to Donald Trump, and has called his latest take on trade a "scam."  After all, EPI bills itself as the first (and the premier) think tank to focus on the economic conditions of low- and middle-income Americans and their families.  Being linked to a billionaire is a huge no-no.

From 2010 to 2014, about 57% of EPI funding came from foundation grants, while another 27% came from labor unions.  The remainder came from a mix of organizations, corporations, individuals, and others.

The Wall Street Journal recently called EPI "the AFL-CIO's think tank," referring to the largest federation of unions in the United States.

Think Tank: You Can't Live in DC on a Think Tank Salary

The liberal think tank Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has developed a Family Budget Calculator that tallies the annual income needed to support a family of four to cover the cost of seven needs: transportation, food, housing, child care, taxes, and "other necessities."

Here is a chart from the Washington Post comparing the 10 largest US metro areas by population (including Washington, DC - the home of hundreds of think tanks) showing the annual cost of living.

The average annual cost for a family of four to live in Washington, DC - the home of 396 think tanks and counting - is $106,493.  The average think tank salary is somewhere between $47,000 and $66,000.

It shows that in Washington, DC, if you work at a think tank and are the sole breadwinner with a family, you basically will not be able to live in Washington (unless you are at the upper echelons).  Happy think tanking!