Media clips

• Kroger CEO Cut Workers’ COVID-19 Hazard Pay, Grabbed Record $22.4 Million Package Himself

  CEOs of 350 large publicly traded companies in 2019 earned an average 320 times more than the typical worker in the same company, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In 1989, the average ratio was 61-to-1.

  Huffpost May 14, 2021
• ‘It’s a minefield’: US restaurant workers leave industry over Covid

  A recent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute noted through March there were an average of 9.8 million unemployed workers compared to 8.1m job openings. Several industries, including the accommodation and food service industries, had more than 1.5 unemployed workers per job opening.

  In regards to labor shortage claims, the Economic Policy Institute noted such claims would be short-lived as the accommodation and food service industry added 241,400 jobs in April last year. The leisure and hospitality sectors have experienced the most rapid employment growth over the past month, and economists with the Economic Policy Institute warned of the negative economic consequences of cutting pandemic unemployment insurance benefits.

  The Guardian May 14, 2021
• Biden spending plans hit speed bumps

  Liberal economists who were skeptical of the labor shortage narrative have also ceded that some restaurants and hospitality businesses will not be able to keep up with current wage demands.

  “Labor shortages—which we would define by a large acceleration of wage growth to a rate that would be hard to sustain over the next year—do seem to have popped up in the leisure and hospitality sector,” wrote Josh Bivens and Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.

  The Hill May 14, 2021
• GOP governors move to cut unemployment benefits as debate rages over effects

  David Cooper, a senior economic analyst at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said that allowing people a little extra time to find more suitable work would actually benefit the economy in the long run.

  “It may be that some job options being presented to them are very low-paying jobs, and if enhanced unemployment benefits are giving workers a little more bargaining power, maybe that’s a good thing,” he said.

  “It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever to pull back on unemployment benefits simply because restaurant owners are struggling to find staff.”

  The Hill May 14, 2021
• Half of US restaurant owners say they can’t hire enough workers: What is the real cause of the shortage?

  The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a non-profit think-tank based in Washington, D.C., further determined that April’s slow job growth had little to do with continued unemployment aid, but rather continued health concerns and an “outflow” of workers — primarily women — from employment due to caregiving concerns.

  “Millions of Americans continue to cite health concerns as a reason for reluctance to return to work — as further evidence of this, vaccination rates correlate positively with increased employment across states,” wrote Josh Bivens and Heidi Shierholz of the EPI in a blog post published Tuesday.

  Nextstar Media Wire May 14, 2021
• Unemployment claims fell last week.

  “Overall, jobless claims are about three times as high as they were pre-Covid, but they’re coming down” said Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

  New York Times May 14, 2021
• Some GOP states are moving to end federal unemployment benefits, which could impact at least 276,000 workers

  Individual states rolling back federal unemployment benefits could have a disproportionate impact on marginalized workers. A report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI) looked at how much of the UI disbursed in each state was from federal benefits. The EPI report notes that this could impact workers along racial lines, since states where Black Americans make up a larger share of the population tend to have weaker UI benefits.

  In South Carolina, for instance, around 76% of total UI came from federal programs in the fourth quarter of 2020. Arkansas and Montana both leaned heavily on federal benefits in disbursement of UI benefits, with federal UI making up 74.7% and 68.7% of their total disbursed benefits, respectively.

  “The US economy is still down 8.2 million jobs from what we had prior to the pandemic — and if you account for people newly entering the workforce since then, we are down over 11 million jobs,” David Cooper, a senior economic analyst at EPI, said in an email to Insider. “So, the economy is simply not at a place where we should be cutting back UI benefits. There are far more people looking for work and unable to find it than there are employers unable to fill vacancies, and pulling back on UI will only slow down the recovery.”

  Business Insider May 14, 2021
• U.S. job openings hit record high in March

  “Before long many more workers will come back into job-search as it becomes increasingly safe to pursue these public facing jobs … and as wages rise to compensate for the extra risk of working in face-to-face places during the lingering pandemic,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.

  Reuters May 14, 2021
• Prices rising as lawmakers weigh how to proceed on infrastructure plan

  As more Americans get vaccinated and restaurants and retail reopen, economists say many are eager to spend, with businesses struggling to keep up with demand, therefore raising prices, though some economists say the big picture is important to consider since the numbers are compared to the same month a year ago.

  “If we just go back in time, in April 2020 and think about what was happening in the economy then, that was the worst month of the COVID collapse,” said Josh Bivens, the director of Research at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.

  Sinclair Broadcast Group May 14, 2021
• Low pay and ‘toxic’ workplaces are driving workers away from restaurants
  The jobs restaurant workers did before have changed, as has the world around them, and wages should reflect that, said Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

  “When restaurants post jobs, they are posting jobs right now that are just inherently harder, more stressful than they were before [the Covid-19 pandemic],” Shierholz said. “They have to deal with anti-maskers, much more disinfecting and sanitation requirements, and they’re actually riskier jobs than they used to be.”

  That being said, Shierholz isn’t yet convinced that a true labor shortage has taken hold in restaurants and other sectors. Data such as hours worked and wage growth don’t yet reflect that.

  Businesses that say they have a hard time finding the workers they need, should really include the qualifier, “at the wages I want to pay,” Sheirholz said.

  Expecting to pay the same wages ignores the Covid-19 realities, she said, noting health and safety concerns as well as ongoing childcare needs.
  CNN Business May 14, 2021