EPI in the news

• EPI Clips 10/14/20
  | October 14, 2020
• Some states see better than expected revenues, but budget outlook is still tough

  The unemployment rate has improved since it skyrocketed in the spring, but millions of Americans remain out of work. And the Economic Policy Institute noted last week that Labor Department figures for September show long-term unemployment rising, with about 7.3 million workers unemployed for at least 15 weeks and 2.4 million for 27 weeks or longer. At the same time, the pace at which the nation was regaining jobs appeared to slow down last month.

  Route Fifty | October 13, 2020
• Nobel Prize-winning economist shows how manufacturing started to die under Trump long before the COVID outbreak

  It only adds to the thousands of manufacturing jobs lost under Trump’s administration as he claims that he’s bringing the sector back to live.

  “The Trump administration has taken credit for ‘reshoring’ manufacturing jobs, but the data show that isn’t true. Nearly 1,800 factories have disappeared under Trump between 2016 and 2018,” said EPI Senior Economist and Director of Trade and Manufacturing Research Robert E. Scott. “Additionally, the U.S. trade deficit in manufactured goods rose significantly between 2016 and 2019. In fact, the real U.S. trade deficit has increased in every year since 2016, reducing GDP growth by roughly 0.25% annually over the past three years. Compounded with the devastation left by the coronavirus pandemic, the blue-collar manufacturing workers need serious help from policymakers.”

  Raw Story | October 13, 2020
• JPMorgan Chase commits $30 billion to tackle racial wealth gap

  In 2016, the typical white family had a net worth nearly 10 times that of a Black family, according to a Brookings Institute analysis. Moreover in 2019, the average wage gap between a Black and white worker in the U.S. was 26.5%, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  ABC News | October 13, 2020
• One-third of Americans can’t pay their bills as stimulus talks stall

  Nearly 27 million workers are either receiving or have applied for unemployment benefits, including the 1.3 million who filed for either state or federal pandemic benefits just last week, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Senate Republicans let a weekly $600 unemployment benefit for workers impacted by the pandemic expire in July, and funding for a $300 weekly benefit provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under Trump’s direction is already exhausted in states across the country. FEMA will be unable to provide more emergency unemployment funding unless Congress agrees on a stimulus.

  Truthout | October 13, 2020
• Dear Sophie: How can employers hire & comply with all this new H-1B craziness?

  A 2019 report by the Economic Policy Institute found that for every 100 professional, scientific and technical services jobs created in the private sector in the U.S., 418 additional, indirect jobs are created as a result. Nearly 575 additional jobs are created for every 100 information jobs, and 206 additional jobs are created for every 100 healthcare and social assistance jobs.

  TechCrunch | October 13, 2020
• The $185 million campaign to keep Uber and Lyft drivers as contractors in California
  Yes on 22 has positioned worker flexibility at the center of its television and social media campaigns, and indeed, for many workers the ability to work whenever they want by just opening an app is very appealing.

  But contrary to the Yes campaign’s positioning, there’s nothing in California law that prevents companies from providing such flexibility to workers, regardless of employment status, as some labor experts have pointed out. Terri Gerstein of the Harvard Labor and Worklife Program and Economic Policy Institute called it a “faux concern.”

  In fact, it’s spelled out in AB-5 that “nothing in this act is intended to diminish the flexibility of employees to work part-time or intermittent schedules or to work for multiple employers.”
  CNN Business | October 13, 2020

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