 We're clearly entering a new era. It's going to be new exciting sort of scary in some ways We've been together for 16 years and it's like losing a boss or friend All at once, but he has prepared the ground really well for the new era has fostered each of us individually as researchers Intellectually personally and he will not be totally gone. That's for sure My jobs up until EPI were all one or two-year jobs So the idea that I've been here for 30 years Is quite an unexpected joy and and the fact that there is such an institution that has allowed me to be all of me Welcome to on the economy. It's actually kind of hard to articulate what I've learned from Larry because Kind of everything I do I learned from Larry. So I have his voice in my head every time I do anything Larry is the best boss. I had in my entire work life of 40 plus years He supported me as an economist as an intellectual He's just been a great colleague and a friend Larry is proud of being a voice for working families and and that's one of the reasons that EPI's work has been so strong over 30 years I was very early attracted to working with the labor movement He has spent his entire adult life working in unions and with unions and for union members. I Decided that that was going to dedicate my life to trying to be some kind of expert bring technical skill To the labor movement at first it was I thought it was going to be as a labor lawyer But I quickly realized I was really interested in economics, which is due to my professor I met at Penn State Chuck Crapo. I wanted to say just a few things And why I think the topic we're dealing with today and the way it's being dealt with is rather refreshing for me 20 years ago there was a kind of orthodoxy which said well, it's all technology skill bias technological change and Larry was one of the first people to say hey This doesn't fit the facts. This isn't what's happening. It's a story about something very very different It's a story about bargaining power about unions about relationships. I've just completed a comprehensive study of the friends and Income wages employment wealth and poverty all the state of working America VPI under Larry's influence has become probably the most important source of data About what is happening in the workplace things that EPI was saying 20 years ago I mean was hammering 20 years ago and everybody was saying you're crazy That's not correct things about international trade things about wage stagnation things about inequality things that EPI was saying really important and People didn't quite get it back then all of them now are considered really important Probably the biggest policy change we've seen so far It's probably minimum wage policy Where Larry's and EP are probably done more than anyone else to make that part of our political discourse EPI allows me to be connected to the labor movement to connect it to workers But to also do academic quality work for the last two weeks I've been the president of the Economic Policy Institute to talk to the media that talked to policy makers It allows me to be all of me all the different parts that I really wanted to be he has Mentored so many young economists and then they go on and You know make names for themselves Because of his mentoring The idea that he has allowed us to meddle with this thing that is his baby state of working America and Try to experiment with different ways to get the message out and tell the narrative in ways that will resonate with people I think speaks really highly of them. I've never been about me. It's been about Our being effective Patients have shrunk not from what the government has taken out But it's what employers have failed to put in it's been a hard 30 years to watch the labor movement in decline And there aren't very many people who have fought harder and done more to tell the world Why that's a bad trend why we need unions the famous graph which shows Productivity going up, but wages not Larry was instrumental in being able to illustrate How that matters for workers in this country first appeared in the 1994 state of working America that Jared Bernstein and I Prepared we kind of spent most of our time together back then Crunching numbers and we both remember to this day a conversation with Bob Rubin in the White House Bob Rubin I believe was talking about some of the improvements in the deficit and how the economy was starting to percolate And we said yeah all true, but look at this chart and we said Bob look at figure a There's productivity here's median wages. They don't necessarily Grow together, and he said oh well, that's a problem This is not a think tank and the way of you go off to your office And you think and your job is done Your job is to win fights that will make life better for low and middle-income Americans And until you do that your job is not done and every time you lose you should take it personally and boy Larry takes it personally. I think that he really cares. He is constantly reminded of the people that are at the other end of the work That we're doing Obviously, I'm a Phillies fan don't mess with him when it comes to the Eagles or anything to do with Philadelphia He's a Philly boy my Eagles hat got a spring training with the signature Jason Peters the best left tackle and football He says he bleeds eagle blue and is it blue green? I guess Eagles green I'm no Eagles fan. You've been sort of on the right side of this in certain ways history is moving your direction now here comes Donald Trump Well, I'm not sure why you all give Donald Trump any credibility at all in economics when you talk to him I still got some game left and so that's why I Aspire to become an API economist for several more years, and I expect I'll I'll do some TV and I'll do some media still Larry's voice will be even more important in this very troubling age that we have now moved into I Think he has left behind a legacy of people who are really committed to the work and have been trained really well to continue the work So I think we've got that really solid core at EPI listen to EPI now And then you were off to kick yourself in the ass because you didn't listen to him 20 years ago I wish Larry well as he goes on on his next adventure He's not falling off the face of the earth and in fact my guess is you could not stop him from Offering his insights and his analysis on what's happening in the economy if you actively try it. I Know he'll be by my side. I know he'll always have good advice for me And I know he always will care about the future of EPI I just like to tell him thanks for having me work with him all these years and and for being a friend There's a team of people here at EPI that carry on that work really independent of me at this time And I think they do just a wonderful job and I'm very proud of them