Learning during the pandemic: Making social and emotional learning front and center
The prolonged school lockdowns that, starting in early spring of 2020, dismantled children’s routines, including normal school days, also blocked their access to the basic supports that schools provide—including organized recreation, and, of course, the face-to-face contact with teachers and friends that is fundamental to child development. It thus should be no surprise that the pandemic has not only led to reduced student performance, on average, but also stretched to the limit children’s social and emotional wellbeing.
What, in education policy and practice, we call “social and emotional learning” (SEL) has long been known to be important for student development and academic success, but the pandemic has emphasized the need to elevate its importance. Indeed, as the pandemic unfolded, it was clear that SEL, or children’s “patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors,” are at least as critical as other traditional academic competencies. We saw that empathy, resilience, and the ability to cope with anxiety, turned out to have major impacts on children’s daily lives, and must be emphasized along with algebra, history, social sciences, or foreign languages.
There is a threefold explanation—that contains the good, bad, and ugly— as to why and how the pandemic has highlighted that need, and as to which lessons education policy can learn as we move forward.
1.3 million people applied for unemployment insurance last week: Policymakers must pass crucial relief and recovery measures
This morning the Department of Labor (DOL) released the first official economic data collected during the Biden presidency—initial unemployment insurance claims from last week (well, half of last week was in the Biden presidency). What it shows is that Biden inherited an extremely weak labor market.
Another 1.3 million people applied for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits last week, including 847,000 people who applied for regular state UI and 427,000 who applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). The 1.3 million who applied for UI last week was a decrease of 87,000 from the prior week, but the four-week moving average of total initial claims ticked up by 45,000. The four-week moving average of total initial claims has risen back to roughly where it was in mid-October.
Last week was the 45th straight week total initial claims were greater than the worst week of the Great Recession. (If that comparison is restricted to regular state claims—because we didn’t have PUA in the Great Recession—initial claims last week were still greater than the second-worst week of the Great Recession.) I should note that throughout this post I use seasonally adjusted data where I can, but for comparisons to the Great Recession I use not-seasonally-adjusted data, since DOL’s improved seasonal adjustments aren’t available before the week ending Aug. 29, 2020.
Most states provide just 26 weeks of regular benefits, meaning many workers are exhausting their regular state UI benefits. In the most recent data (the week ending Jan. 16), continuing claims for regular state benefits dropped by 203,000. After a worker exhausts regular state benefits, they can move onto Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), which is an additional 24 weeks of regular state UI (the December COVID-19 relief bill increased the number of weeks of PEUC eligibility by 11, from 13 to 24).
President Biden inherits a weak labor market due to inadequate COVID-19 response: Biden and Congress must make stimulus its first priority
This morning, the Department of Labor (DOL) released some of the last unemployment insurance (UI) claims data of the Trump era. That means this release helps us understand the economy President Biden just inherited. Here’s what it shows.
Another 1.3 million people applied for UI benefits last week, including 900,000 people who applied for regular state UI and 424,000 who applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). The 1.3 million who applied for UI last week was an increase of 113,000 from the prior week. The increase underscores that layoffs are increasing as the virus surges. The four-week moving average of total initial claims is now back to where it was in mid-October.
Last week was the 44th straight week total initial claims were greater than the worst week of the Great Recession. (If that comparison is restricted to regular state claims—because we didn’t have PUA in the Great Recession—initial claims last week were still greater than the worst week of the Great Recession.) I should note that throughout this post I use seasonally adjusted data where I can, but for comparisons to the Great Recession I use not-seasonally-adjusted data, since DOL’s improved seasonal adjustments aren’t available before the week ending August 29, 2020.
Martin Luther King called for leaders with ‘sound integrity’
Two weeks ago, the 117th Congress was sworn in. In two days, Joseph R. Biden Jr. will take the oath of office and become the 46th president of the United States. Between these two pivotal moments, with our nation’s leaders entering office during turbulent times, it is fitting to reflect on what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—a leader among leaders, whose legacy we celebrate today—had to say about leadership.
The U.S. economy could use some ‘overheating’: Biden’s relief and recovery plan meets the scale of the economic crisis
Recent proposals for large-scale fiscal relief and recovery from the economic effects of COVID-19 have drawn criticism that they could lead to “overheating” of the U.S. economy. These criticisms should be ignored. Proposals under discussion—including Biden’s economic plan introduced tonight—are highly unlikely to lead to any durable uptick in inflation or interest rates (the normal indicators of “overheating”) and even if they did, these higher interest rates and inflation would be a welcome sign of economic healing, not something to worry about.
Unemployment claims increase as COVID-19 surges
Another 1.2 million people applied for Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits last week, including 965,000 people who applied for regular state UI and 284,000 who applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). The 1.2 million who applied for UI last week was an increase of 304,000 from the prior week. The increase was due in part to data volatility during a messy time for UI data—the holidays, the President delaying signing the relief bill until the day after the pandemic programs expired—but the 181,000 rise in seasonally adjusted regular state claims suggests layoffs are increasing as the COVID-19 pandemic surges.
Last week was the 43rd straight week total initial claims were greater than the worst week of the Great Recession. (If that comparison is restricted to regular state claims—because we didn’t have PUA in the Great Recession—initial claims last week were still greater than the worst week of the Great Recession.)
Most states provide just 26 weeks of regular benefits, so many workers are exhausting their regular state UI benefits. In the most recent data, however, continuing claims for regular state UI rose by 199,000, meaning new continuing claims were outpacing exhaustions. After an individual exhausts regular state benefits, they can move onto Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), which is an additional 24 weeks of regular state UI (the December COVID-19 relief bill increased the number of weeks of PEUC eligibility by 11, from 13 to 24).
Twenty states raised their minimum wages on New Year’s Day: Federal action is still needed
On January 1, minimum wages went up in 20 states. The increases range from an $0.08 inflation adjustment in Minnesota to a $1.50 per hour raise in New Mexico, the equivalent of an annual increase ranging from $166 to $3,120 for a full-time, full-year minimum wage worker. The updates can be viewed in EPI’s interactive Minimum Wage Tracker and in Figure A and Table 1 below.
In prior years, we have estimated the number of workers who would directly benefit from these increases, as well as the total dollar amount and average wage increase for affected workers in each state. Unfortunately, current circumstances make it difficult to accurately produce estimates of this year’s increases. The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated labor markets throughout the country, with a large share of the job losses occurring in low-wage sectors, such as leisure and hospitality, where minimum wage hikes typically affect large shares of workers. Because conditions in these industries are so different from what they were in the period reflected in our model’s underlying data, we cannot use it to make estimations about effects happening right at this moment.
Even so, we know that minimum wage increases are as crucial as ever in the current context—to protect low-wage workers from exploitation and continue toward the goal of a living wage for all workers. From a macroeconomic perspective, it’s smart policy: Low-wage households—who disproportionately benefit from increases to the minimum wage—are highly likely to quickly spend the extra dollars they receive, boosting consumer demand as we move into recovery.
The Trump administration finalizes rule attacking federal workers’ right to union representation in workplace discrimination cases
In his final weeks in office, the Trump administration continues to attack federal workers’ right to union representation. Last week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) voted to finalize a rule that prohibits union representatives from using official time—which is paid work time representatives use for union activities—to represent their coworkers in equal employment opportunity (EEO) matters, overturning almost 50 years of precedent. By prohibiting union representatives from using official time during EEO matters, the final rule effectively limits the right of federal workers to choose their representative in the EEO complaint process.
The rule also creates enormous cost burdens for federal workers who want to file a workplace discrimination complaint. By prohibiting the use of official time in discrimination complaints, federal workers are faced with the choice of hiring a private attorney or asking an inexperienced coworker to be their representative on their own free time. The cost of an attorney will be too costly for many vulnerable federal workers, and between the choices of hiring an attorney, asking an inexperienced coworker to be a representative, or not filing at all, many will forgo exercising their rights.
This is only one of many ways the Trump administration has attacked federal workers’ unions. During his first year, President Trump issued three executive orders eroding the collective bargaining rights of federal workers. These orders shortened the time frame expected to complete bargaining and directed agencies not to bargain over certain topics, limited the use of official time for collective bargaining activities, and weakened due process protections for federal workers subject to discipline. In October 2019, Trump signed an executive order revoking an executive order issued by former President Obama that gave employees of federal contractors the right of first refusal for employment on a new contract when a federal service contract changes hand.
The economy President-elect Biden is inheriting: 26.8 million workers—15.8% of the workforce—are being directly hurt by the coronavirus crisis
We now have a full year of jobs data for 2020. This is an important moment to take stock of where things stand in the labor market.
The official unemployment rate was 6.7% in December, and the official number of unemployed workers was 10.7 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). These official numbers are a vast undercount of the number of workers being harmed by the weak labor market, however. In fact, 26.8 million workers—15.8% of the workforce—are either unemployed, otherwise out of work due to the pandemic, or employed but experiencing a drop in hours and pay. Here are the missing factors:
- Some workers are being misclassified as “employed, not at work” instead of unemployed. BLS has discussed at length that there have been many workers who have been misclassified as “employed, not at work” during this pandemic who should be classified as “temporarily unemployed.” In December, there were 1.0 million such workers, a substantial increase from November. (Wonky aside: Some of these workers may not have had the option of being classified as “temporarily unemployed,” meaning they weren’t technically misclassified, but all of them were out of work because of the virus.) Accounting for these workers, the unemployment rate would be 7.3%.
How to organize in the anti-union South
Amy Waters, RN, CPN, at Mission Hospital in Asheville, NC, detailed her story of a successful union drive as a member of National Nurses United at EPI’s panel discussion, “Rebuilding Collective Bargaining Back Better.”
“We are now the first private hospital in North Carolina with a union and we are the largest newly formed union in the South, since, I believe, the 1970s,” says Waters.