EPI in the news

• The Fed Does Its Part. Congress Must Provide Unemployment And Other Stimulus—Now.

  The Fed’s worries are dramatically confirmed by economic data.  On Thursday, GDP figures confirmed the recession’s depth.  GDP fell by 9.5% in the second quarter, “the fastest the quarterly rate has fallen in modern record-keeping.” And new claims for unemployment insurance were over two million.  As economist Heidi Shierholz at the Economic Policy Institute notes, that “was the 19th week in a row that unemployment claims have been more than twice the worst week of the Great Recession.”

  The Republican HEALS proposals would further slow the economy.   The Economic Policy Institute estimates that just eliminating the $600 supplemental unemployment insurance benefit would cut around 3.4 million jobs.  And so far, Republicans have offered no additional aid to state and local governments, where budget and spending cuts also will drag the economy down.

  Forbes | July 31, 2020
• Child care availability concerns during pandemic grow, lawmakers push for funding

  Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono (D) has long-advocated for universal child care. The service in the Aloha State ranks among the highest in the country – an average of $13,731 a year, according to 2019 data from the Economic Policy Institute.

  Erie News Now | July 31, 2020
• As extra jobless benefits end, millions of Americans struggle to afford food

  Millions of Americans could tumble off an “income cliff,” as experts have dubbed the expiration of emergency federal relief and moratoriums on evictions, just as the nascent economic recovery is sputtering, according to Josh Bivens, director of research at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

  CBS News | July 31, 2020
• Herman Cain’s Enduring Lobbying Triumph

  Restaurant employers were supposed to help servers earn tips to make up the difference between this tipped minimum wage and the regular minimum wage. But the result was by and large a disaster for restaurant servers. According to the Economic Policy Institute, in 1996, the tipped minimum was half the regular minimum wage; by 2014, it was “equal to a record low 29.4 percent of the regular federal minimum wage of $7.25,” where it remains today. Around two-thirds of workers making the tipped minimum are women, EPI reports. Forcing women to rely on the whims of customers for the bulk of their livelihoods exposes them to sexual harassment: “Tipped workers have a median wage (including tips) of $10.22, compared with $16.48 for all workers. While the poverty rate of non-tipped workers is 6.5 percent, tipped workers have a poverty rate of 12.8 percent.” Tipped workers rely on food stamps at a rate twice that of the general population.

  Mother Jones | July 31, 2020
• Historic freefall: Economy shrinks by 33 percent, 2M more jobless

  “GDP collapsed faster in the second quarter of 2020 than it has in any other recorded quarter of U.S. history. Congress needs to restore the extra $600 in unemployment insurance and provide large-scale, flexible aid to state and local governments,” the Economic Policy Institute tweeted.

  People’s World | July 31, 2020
• Lack of aid to states could hit Black and women workers hard

  “The public sector disproportionately employs workers that have historically had more trouble in the labor market due to issues around discrimination,” said John Schmitt, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute.

  “We never caught up again,” said Sylvia Allegretto, co-chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley. “So we have a huge gap.”

  Marketplace | July 31, 2020
• In Our View: Republican unemployment aid plan off base

  “Cutting off the $600 cannot incentivize people to get jobs that aren’t there,” said Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute and a former chief economist at the Labor Department, CNBC reported.

  The Columbian | July 31, 2020

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