“This idea that we’re all in this together is sort of a false statement to make,” said Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy. “Black workers are the least likely to be able to work from home.”
On average, black households had $8,762 in cash or equivalent liquid assets compared with $49,529 for white households, according to government data analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute. Black households with a high school degree or less had, on average, only $5,289 in liquid assets.
The Washington Post
June 4, 2020
“The pandemic and related job losses have been especially devastating for black households,” the Economic Policy Institute said in a recent report. “They have historically suffered from higher unemployment rates, lower wages, lower incomes, and much less savings to fall back on, as well as significantly higher poverty rates than their white counterparts.”
“It certainly is the case that we were finally seeing the recovery from the Great Recession hit more and more people,” says Elise Gould, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute. “Historically disadvantaged groups were finally beginning to see lower unemployment rates.”
USA Today
June 4, 2020
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 1.877 million people filed new claims for state jobless benefits in the week ending May 30. But another three million-plus newly jobless workers were forced to seek only new federal jobless benefits available from the $2.2 trillion stimulus law Congress passed in March, Economic Policy Institute Policy Director Heidi Shierholz pointed out.
People's Weekly World
June 4, 2020
So when the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics last month reported that there was a precipitous drop in local education jobs in April, it got plenty of attention from economists, mainstream publications like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and, most recently, the Economic Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank that focuses on the impact that the economy has on low and middle-income workers.
Education Week
June 4, 2020
What proponents of the Heroes Act say: Since the middle of March, more than 38 million US workers who have lost their jobs have filed for unemployment. The actual number of those unemployed could be millions higher, according to the Economic Policy Institute, because many people who are eligible were unable to file a jobless claim. With the job losses, the nation’s unemployment rate reached 17.2% (PDF), according to the US Department of Labor. Newly unemployed people, along with others taking an economic hit from the pandemic, would benefit from having more money to spend right now.
CNET
June 4, 2020
Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the progressive Economic Policy Institute and a former chief economist at the Labor Department, suggested that more government aid will be necessary to keep consumers and businesses afloat so that many laid-off workers will have jobs to return to.
“Those jobs are not going to come back if the federal government doesn’t do the things it needs to do to stimulate the economy, so that the demand and confidence is going to be there, so that those businesses will need to call workers back,” Shierholz said.
Fox News
June 4, 2020
Since black workers are already more likely to be unemployed than white workers, even with the same levels of education, they typically suffer disproportionately during an economic downturn, said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-of-center, labor-focused think tank. We’re already seeing evidence of that trend playing out this time around.
An EPI analysis of government data from February to April found that the black unemployment rate rose from 5.8% to 16.7% during that period, while the white unemployment rate jumped from 3.1% to 14.2%. Economic downturns are a period where the power of employers typically increases, allowing more room for discrimination in hiring, Gould said.
For young black workers, this dynamic is exacerbated by their thin job history. “If you’re in an economy where employers can choose who they want, they can choose to discriminate, they can choose to have workers who have more experience,” she said.
MarketWatch
June 4, 2020
“Many commentators are reporting the cumulative number of initial regular state UI claims over the last 10 weeks as a measure of how many people have applied for UI in this pandemic,” said Heidi Shierholz, a former chief economist at the Labor Department.
“We should abandon that approach because it ignores PUA, and is thus an understatement on that front, but may overstate things in other ways,” added Shierholz, now a policy director at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
Reuters
June 4, 2020
The month of April brought devastating job losses. Week after week, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits broke records. By month’s end, thirty million people—about 18 percent of the workforce—were jobless. That did not count anyone who worked on a freelance basis, who would not be eligible to file, or anyone undocumented who didn’t qualify for unemployment insurance. According to the Economic Policy Institute, Black workers saw greater losses in employment than white workers did—more than one in six Black workers lost their jobs between February and April, per a recent report—and, as of April, under half the Black population was employed. The hardest-hit group was Black women: between February and April, 18.8 percent lost their jobs.
Columbia Journalism Review
June 4, 2020
Those disparities exist because of a long history of policies that excluded and exploited black Americans, said Valerie Wilson, director of the program on race, ethnicity and the economy at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning group.
“Racial inequality has become so normalized in this society,” she said. “It’s what we expect to see. That’s the way it’s been for so long.”
CNN
June 4, 2020
More than half of African American adults are now jobless, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
San Antonio Express-News
June 4, 2020
“This idea that we’re all in this together is sort of a false statement to make,” said Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy. “Black workers are the least likely to be able to work from home.”
On average, black households had $8,762 in cash or equivalent liquid assets compared with $49,529 for white households, according to government data analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute. Black households with a high school degree or less had, on average, only $5,289 in liquid assets.
The Washington Post
June 4, 2020
We’ll have gained more, in fact, than if 2.5 percent of U.S GDP were invested in the energy transition during the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, which ended abruptly in March. Back then, building out clean energy infrastructure would have meant pulling workers from one line of work to another, or “job shifting,” says Josh Bivens, director of research for the Economic Policy Institute. And that would have been fine, “but you’d only be solving the one problem,” which is climate change. “Now you’d solve that problem and create a bunch of jobs for people who actually need them because they’re unemployed.”
And don’t fear debt or deficits, Bivens says. Even in a strong economy, government borrowing “puts upward pressure on interest rates,” which makes private investment more expensive, crowding out investors who would build inefficient office parks or back conventional energy production. “And that’s actually the whole point,” Bivens says. “One reason why the climate situation is so grim is that we’re bequeathing into the future this conventional capital stock” – coal plants, drafty buildings, oil production – “that is way too dirty. We want to crowd that out with green capital, and that’s exactly what deficit-financed green public investments would do.”
Capital and Main
June 4, 2020
“The pandemic and related job losses have been especially devastating for black households,” the Economic Policy Institute said in a recent report. “They have historically suffered from higher unemployment rates, lower wages, lower incomes, and much less savings to fall back on, as well as significantly higher poverty rates than their white counterparts.”
“It certainly is the case that we were finally seeing the recovery from the Great Recession hit more and more people,” says Elise Gould, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute. “Historically disadvantaged groups were finally beginning to see lower unemployment rates.”
USA Today
June 4, 2020
I wanted this post to center on black voices, so all the authors are Black. However, if you’re gonna read two things by white people, I’d suggest reading The Making of Ferguson, a report by Richard Rothstein for The Economic Policy Institute, which is incredibly thorough as it sets up the historical and cultural forces that made Ferguson such a ripe epicenter for this current conflict. I also found Why It’s Impossible To Indict A Cop very educational.
Autostraddle
June 4, 2020
A new report from the Economic Policy Institute delves into the myriad ways racial and economic inequality have exacerbated the impact of the coronavirus crisis on black communities.
Millions of black workers have lost their jobs during the pandemic, putting them at a high degree of economic insecurity, in part because they’ve had lower incomes and less savings already.
Of those who’ve kept their jobs, many more are putting their health at risk — black workers are less likely to have jobs that allow them to work from home — a risk magnified by inequalities in the health care system and a higher prevalence of underlying health conditions.
Daily Kos
June 4, 2020
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 1.877 million people filed new claims for state jobless benefits in the week ending May 30. But another three million-plus newly jobless workers were forced to seek only new federal jobless benefits available from the $2.2 trillion stimulus law Congress passed in March, Economic Policy Institute Policy Director Heidi Shierholz pointed out.
People's Weekly World
June 4, 2020
So when the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics last month reported that there was a precipitous drop in local education jobs in April, it got plenty of attention from economists, mainstream publications like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and, most recently, the Economic Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank that focuses on the impact that the economy has on low and middle-income workers.
Education Week
June 4, 2020
Data compiled by the Economic Policy Institute show that black workers are more likely to hold front-line jobs, including roles in public transit, child care and health care. And fewer than 1 in 5 black workers are able to work from home, putting them at greater risk for acquiring the virus.
AARP
June 4, 2020
Black Americans are more likely to work in low-paid jobs as “essential workers,” often without adequate protection. That is one of the factors contributing to the connection between racism and COVID-19, a state of affairs addressed by a series of stunning economic statistics released this week by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Who. What. Why
June 4, 2020
What proponents of the Heroes Act say: Since the middle of March, more than 38 million US workers who have lost their jobs have filed for unemployment. The actual number of those unemployed could be millions higher, according to the Economic Policy Institute, because many people who are eligible were unable to file a jobless claim. With the job losses, the nation’s unemployment rate reached 17.2% (PDF), according to the US Department of Labor. Newly unemployed people, along with others taking an economic hit from the pandemic, would benefit from having more money to spend right now.
CNET
June 4, 2020
“That’s pretty alarming I have to say,” says Elise Gould, a senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Her recent work on how Covid-19 has affected black workers is based on national data, which she says “misses so much of the differences we see across the United States.”
Quartz
June 4, 2020
Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the progressive Economic Policy Institute and a former chief economist at the Labor Department, suggested that more government aid will be necessary to keep consumers and businesses afloat so that many laid-off workers will have jobs to return to.
“Those jobs are not going to come back if the federal government doesn’t do the things it needs to do to stimulate the economy, so that the demand and confidence is going to be there, so that those businesses will need to call workers back,” Shierholz said.
Fox News
June 4, 2020
Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute noted in a blog post last week that more than one in five U.S. workers are currently either receiving unemployment benefits or waiting for approval. Shierholz said “policymakers need to do more” to provide people with financial relief as the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic continues.
To that end, Shierholz urged Congress to extend the $600 weekly boost in unemployment benefits provided under the CARES Act, which is set to expire on July 31.
“We also must provide more funding to state [unemployment insurance] agencies to hire staff to speed up processing and to make improvements to websites and other administrative infrastructure,” wrote Shierholz.
Common Dreams
June 4, 2020
Since black workers are already more likely to be unemployed than white workers, even with the same levels of education, they typically suffer disproportionately during an economic downturn, said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-of-center, labor-focused think tank. We’re already seeing evidence of that trend playing out this time around.
An EPI analysis of government data from February to April found that the black unemployment rate rose from 5.8% to 16.7% during that period, while the white unemployment rate jumped from 3.1% to 14.2%. Economic downturns are a period where the power of employers typically increases, allowing more room for discrimination in hiring, Gould said.
For young black workers, this dynamic is exacerbated by their thin job history. “If you’re in an economy where employers can choose who they want, they can choose to discriminate, they can choose to have workers who have more experience,” she said.
MarketWatch
June 4, 2020
STACEY VANEK SMITH, BYLINE: Valerie Wilson directs the Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute. Valerie points out that black Americans are dying at 2 1/2 times the rate of white Americans. Part of the reason for that, she says, is because of jobs.
NPR
June 4, 2020
“Many commentators are reporting the cumulative number of initial regular state UI claims over the last 10 weeks as a measure of how many people have applied for UI in this pandemic,” said Heidi Shierholz, a former chief economist at the Labor Department.
“We should abandon that approach because it ignores PUA, and is thus an understatement on that front, but may overstate things in other ways,” added Shierholz, now a policy director at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
Reuters
June 4, 2020
The housing conditions for black Americans also leave them more exposed to contracting coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Only 54.5% of African-American households live in single-family homes, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, compared with 74.5% of white households.
MarketWatch
June 4, 2020