EPI in the news

• USA: Businessmen redouble their efforts in favor of immigrants

  “The priorities for business have not changed,” said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. “The main difference is that under Trump, the majority knew there was no way immigration reform could be passed … but now there is a president who is willing to sign and sign an immigration bill into law,” he explained.

  Associated Press | June 17, 2021
• Weekly jobless claims rise for first time since April

  “There is, however, a great deal of volatility in the weekly data,” tweeted Heidi Shierholz, policy director at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

  “It is important not to put too much weight on one week,” she continued. “Claims have been steadily coming down in recent months as the labor market strengthens, and I expect that to continue.”

  The Hill | June 17, 2021
• Experts accelerate economic recovery estimations from pandemic

  “We are certainly in the right place to have a speedy and quick reopening and recovery,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

  …

  “Fiscal spending has been key to being able to speed up this recovery,” said Gould. “So, by my calculations, if we continue to go on the track that we’ve been going month after month, we’ll see that we will actually be able to get down to 3.5% unemployment by the end of 2022.”

  According to Gould, the continued stimulus packages from Congress have been game-changers as they have provided continuous relief to people and businesses, rather than temporary relief from a one-time payment.

  The more people spend, she says, the more businesses make, the more they can rehire staff, and the more those so-called “have-nots” can feel some relief.

  Scripps National News | June 17, 2021
• Four states emerge as test case for cutting off jobless benefits

  Heidi Shierholz, a former Labor Department chief economist who now works at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, argued that the seemingly slow rebound of the labor market might not be as dire as it seems.

  “That’s not always a bad thing,” she said of the pace of job gains.

  If the extra benefits allow people to find a more suitable job, or wait for a higher offer, she said, the economy may end up on more productive footing than a situation in which desperate people take anything that’s available to them, regardless of wage or difficulty.

  “If the benefits make it possible for people not to have to take a terrible job, that’s efficiency enhancing,” Shierholz added.

  Although the April and May jobs reports fell short of expectations, she noted, they also showed the economy steadily adding about a half-million jobs a month, rising wages and a concentration of growth in the low-wage leisure sector that should be most affected by high unemployment benefits.

  “Strong job growth and higher wages? That’s the kind of recovery we want to see,” Shierholz said.

  While the rate of job gains implies that the labor market will not completely recover for more than a year, that would still far outpace the anemic aftermath of the Great Recession and the austerity policies that followed.

  The Hill | June 17, 2021
• Republicans Just Killed COVID Unemployment Benefits in These States

  The states that are opting out of the program claim the enhanced unemployment benefits, which were first included in the CARES Act signed by former President Donald Trump last year, are disincentivizing people from returning to work. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the main lobbying arm of American business, has also urged Congress to kill the benefits early.

  This argument relies on company-driven narratives about how people “don’t want to work anymore,” but there’s no evidence to support that claim. As the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute pointed out last month, when states announced they’d slash unemployment benefits, the unemployment rates in nearly all those states were still lagging behind pre-pandemic lows.

  Vice News | June 17, 2021
• Uber and Lyft drivers call for federal intervention in their gig worker labor fight

  Celine McNicholas, director of government affairs and labor counsel at the Economic Policy Institute, says the Trump-era NLRB ruling effectively denied Uber drivers and other gig workers the collective bargaining rights granted by the National Labor Relations Act.

  “We hope the NLRB will correct this error and ensure that these workers have the right to a union,” she said.

  CNN Business | June 17, 2021
• Is the great digital-nomad workforce actually coming?

  Thompson also points out that most digital nomads are white. That tracks with new research from the Economic Policy Institute, which shows that in the US, one in four white workers are able to work from home – that’s compared to one in five black workers, and one in six Hispanic workers. The organisation found disparity across education levels, too: one in three workers with a bachelor’s degree were able to work from home during the pandemic, compared to about one in 20 workers with only a secondary-school education.

  BBC | June 17, 2021

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