Media clips

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• Will there be a fourth stimulus check? Biden’s first address to Congress may offer clues for Americans

  Instead of another round of broad checks, lawmakers should focus on extending unemployment benefits and the child tax credit because they could provide “longer-run fixes” for American households, according to Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute.

  USA Today April 28, 2021
• Federal Reserve says it wants things to cost more for Americans. Here’s why that could be good.

  For many Americans, that might sound like an ominous proposal as it would mean things like groceries, restaurant bills, and leisure activities would all cost more, but Robert Scott, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute, says higher inflation is actually a good thing.

  “A tight labor market and a rapidly growing economy, if we can get there, is going to sustain higher levels of wage increase,” explained Scott. “So, you might be paying more: 2-3% a year more for your food, and groceries, and rent, but your wages might be rising at 3% or 4% or 5% a year. That’s good news. If wages are rising more than prices, you’re going to see a rising standard of living.”

  Scripps National News April 28, 2021
• Biden Tax Plan Paves Way for Women to Power Economic Growth

  Taken altogether, the proposals mark a “meaningful investment in care, in paid leave, that will help many workers in the formal labor market,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “That will absolutely be good for economic growth.”

  Bloomberg April 28, 2021
• Forget obstructionists like Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. The $15 minimum wage fight must go local

  Under Biden’s executive order, an estimated 390,000 workers will directly benefit, which about half are women and the rest are Black or Hispanic, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  Arizona Republic April 28, 2021
• New Biden official charged with enforcing and expanding ‘Buy American’

  Another AFL-CIO alum and Drake’s former boss, Thea Lee, who is president of the labor-friendly Economic Policy Institute, will also be joining the Biden administration in a yet undisclosed role.

  Politico April 28, 2021
• Biden to raise the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15, giving roughly 390,000 workers a pay bump

  The Economic Policy institute estimates that up to 390,000 low-wage federal contractors will see a raise under the policy and that the average annual pay increase for affected year-round workers would be approximately $3,100. Among those who are expected to see their wages rise, roughly half will be women and roughly half will be Black or Hispanic.

  CNBC April 28, 2021
• Biden signs $15 minimum wage for federal contract workers

  The liberal Economic Policy Institute estimates that as many as 390,000 low-wage federal contractors would receive a raise, with roughly half of the beneficiaries being Black or Hispanic workers. There are an estimated 5 million contract workers in the federal government, according to a posting last year for the Brookings Institution by Paul Light, a public policy professor at New York University.

  Associated Press April 28, 2021
• As Biden addresses Congress, economic policy looms large

  Schools have received even more support, including in the American Rescue Plan. “Almost $130 billion for K-12 education, and part of that was meant to allow for school reopening,” said Emma García, an education economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

  García said the administration is hoping to add to that number through its infrastructure package. It’s also pushed a flurry of executive orders on the economy. But, so far, the administration’s been sticking to plans it can implement without Republican support, said Ken Jacobs, chair of the Labor Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

  NPR Marketplace April 28, 2021
• Top Democrats are calling on President Biden to permanently reform unemployment and beef up benefits

  “Unemployed workers really had totally different qualities of life, totally different standards of support based solely on where they live,” David Cooper, a senior economic analyst at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI), told Insider. “As a consequence of that, the data show that in those states where lawmakers had really weakened their state unemployment insurance systems, federal money made up for a larger and larger share of the support going to unemployed workers.”

  The Democratic lawmakers also want UI benefits to be accessible to more workers. They cite the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program, which expanded eligibility of UI to gig workers and freelancers. According to the letter, over 16 million workers have received PUA benefits during the pandemic. A new EPI report found that, by the end of 2020, “PUA made up the largest share of federal UI assistance … contributing 33% of total UI income.”

  Business Insider April 26, 2021
• Unemployment benefits made up a record-high share of Americans’ incomes during the pandemic, and it shows a need for a permanently beefed-up system

  A new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a left-leaning think tank, looks at the share of unemployment benefits as part of wage and salary income. They found that, prior to 2020, benefits from UI had never gone above 6% of a state’s salary and wage income; in 2020’s second quarter, it was above 20% in four states. EPI’s calculations used wage and salary data while Insider looked at unemployment insurance as a percentage of total personal income.

  Importantly, according to the EPI report, the influx of federal UI benefits – both in the form of the additional $600 and the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), which made more workers eligible for employment benefits – helped fill the holes in states’ unemployment benefits.

  “In particular, states with a higher share of Black residents were more reliant on federal assistance to provide UI benefits,” the EPI report says. “But if the pandemic programs fade with no structural reforms, the UI system will revert to being one that sees stingier benefits precisely in those states with higher Black population shares.”

  The fact that those holes needed to be filled, and the amount of income that unemployment made up during the pandemic, shows the need for unemployment reform, according to EPI. They argue that reforms could help codify some of the expanded eligibility and equity from beefed-up pandemic-era benefits, and help shore up the system ahead of future downturns.

  EPI found that, by the end of 2020, benefits that came from PUA – the program that opened unemployment eligibility to workers who normally wouldn’t be able to access benefits – became the greatest share of federal UI. David Cooper, a senior economic analyst at EPI, said that there were nine states where the money from PUA made up over half of all UI going to workers there.

  “I mean, that’s remarkable, that that more than half the assistance provided is going to folks who would not normally qualify for traditional funding,” Cooper said. “That just shows me that our existing eligibility requirements are way out of whack.

  The amount of federal money pouring into unemployment – and going to Americans who were out of work during an unprecedented pandemic – helped close gaps in state UI programs and provide direct relief. It also helped to address racial inequities, since, according to EPI, Black workers were more likely to live in states that had weaker UI; on the whole, workers of color, particularly Black workers, were disproportionately impacted by pandemic unemployment.

  Business Insider April 26, 2021