EPI in the news

• WNYC-FM

  Josh Bivens is the research director at the Economic Policy Institute.

  WNYC | July 14, 2020
• The week that changed everything

  The cost to the Federal Govt for the extra unemployment insurance payments ($600/wk) has been approximately $72 Billion/mo. The Economic Policy Institute is suggesting the payments be continued for a year (or likely, until a cure is discovered or a vaccine developed).

  Seeking Alpha | July 14, 2020
• They tried to start a union during a pandemic, But they were fired. What’s next?

  Since the establishment of the Wagner Act in 1935, private-sector workers have been legally guaranteed the right to organize workplace unions and collectively bargain. But according to a 2019 report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a left-leaning think tank, more than 41 percent of employers were found to have violated the federal law in union election campaigns. According to Celine McNicholas, labor counsel for the EPI and co-author of the report, part of the reason companies feel secure in breaking the law by firing workers or threatening to discipline them for organizing a union is that the enforcement of the law is lax, cases brought by unfairly discharged workers can drag on for years, and the penalties to many employers — rehiring the employee plus back pay, which deducts any income they earned from another job — are a slap on the wrist compared to having to deal with a more expensive and protected workforce.

  Eater | July 14, 2020
• Extra $600-a-week unemployment benefit won’t get renewed, Mnuchin says

  In addition, the Congressional Budget Office found that a continuation of the $600 weekly benefit would boost overall economic output in the second half of 2020. This would help offset the expected 4.6 percent decline in GDP in 2020. Furthermore, the Economic Policy Institute estimates that the spending boost would translate to 5.1 million jobs saved.

  Forbes | July 14, 2020
• Coronavirus: 5.4m Americans lost health insurance during pandemic, report says

  In that time, at least 22 million Americans lost their jobs or left the workforce. The public health crisis also has stripped roughly 16 million workers and their families from employer-provided health plans, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  The Independent | July 14, 2020
• Almost 200K Michigan jobs could be lost if unemployment benefits expire

  The $600 weekly federal unemployment insurance benefits meant to stimulate the national economy during the COVID-19 pandemic expire on July 31. Unless Congress extends those payments, the state could lose a boost in jobs, personal incomes and gross domestic product (GDP) over the next year, according to research from the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

  Michigan Advance | July 14, 2020
• Why teachers’ salaries will fall as unemployment rises

  An April 2020 overview of K-12 job losses notes that, more than 10 years after the Great Recession, employment in public schools hasn’t fully recovered from 2008’s Great Recession. The research further indicates that without support from the federal government, the revenue shortfalls related to the current crisis will be dramatically worse.

  The Economic Policy Institute’s researchers, for instance, anticipate a “revenue shortfall of nearly $1 trillion by 2021.” According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, by early April, just a few weeks after the federal government acknowledged the existence of the pandemic, the job losses in the education sector had already reached 468,000, more than the total number of K-12 job losses over the year-and-a-half of the Great Recession.

  MultiBriefs | July 14, 2020

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