EPI in the news

• Bloomberg Radio

  When I read Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute about the grimness of December for those on claims who are losing their benefits tell us about what’s coming in December. Well, it’s an unappreciated aspect of all this, most of what the CARES Act produced is going to expire on December 31st, including that extra emergency 13 weeks that I was just talking about. The pandemic emergencies goes away December 31st, also the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance which has 8 million people on it now that’s for gig workers and the self-employed that goes away on December 31st. 

  Bloomberg Radio | November 20, 2020
• Why gig companies should be scared of a Biden administration

  Heidi Shierholz, a former chief economist at the Labor Department and senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute, said it could take over a year for the agencies to finalize rules and regulations around gig work. And the lawsuits against gig companies could take even longer, especially if they go to the Supreme Court.

  Protocol | November 20, 2020
• Hazard pay was just a brand exercise

  But one of the bleakest aspects of pandemic hazard pay is that it was never actually particularly widespread to begin with. A survey conducted by the Economic Policy Institute in June found that only about 30 percent of people working outside of their homes during the pandemic had received hazard pay increases, and that number is almost certainly lower now that most of the businesses that previously adopted hazard pay have ended the practice.

  New Republic | November 20, 2020
• Vaccinating educators is essentially, essential

  Recent studies out of the Economic Policy Institute and McKinsey and Company, nonpartisan think tanks, cite the negative impact of reduced and remote learning for children and their futures. Data shows reduced learning time has likely impeded both the amount and quality of learning time with all students, but with a significant impact noted for low-income, Black and Hispanic students. A loss of learning leads to a loss in future earnings and this loss is projected to have a long-term impact, which includes increased dropout rates, decreased educational engagement and a loss of future earnings impacting an already stressed economy.

  Chicago Tribune | November 20, 2020
• ‘We basically made recovery much, much harder than it has to be’

  Janine Jackson interviewed the Economic Policy Institute’s Josh Bivens about pandemic unemployment for the November 13, 2020, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

  FAIR | November 20, 2020
• It’s time for a $15 minimum wage

  The main concern with raising the minimum wage is that business owners will not be prepared to properly pay their workers. But the minimum wage has been $7.25 for a decade, and in 2019, the Economic Policy Institute estimated that only about 5% of the US workforce was earning less than $9 an hour.

  The Daily Utah Chronicle | November 20, 2020
• George’s and other midsize poultry companies struggled to control COVID-19

  The United States’ five largest poultry processing states — Georgia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi — are all in the South. The region’s poultry industry, which is a dominant source of jobs in many rural communities, has historically relied on the labor of Black people, poor white women, and, more recently, immigrants, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute.

  Facing South | November 20, 2020

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