It’s an issue that’s been ongoing since the start of the pandemic. Last April, the Economic Policy Institute reported that for every 10 people who successfully filed a claim, an additional two people didn’t try because it was too difficult. In all, the report suggested, millions more people would have filed for benefits if the process were easier.
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Other potential claimants may be misclassified. There are many people who are classified as employed, but absent from work due to pandemic-related business closures, says Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Some workers who should be classified as ‘unemployed’ are mistakenly classified as ‘employed, but not at work’.
Worker misclassification contributed to approximately 636,000 missing workers who could have filed for unemployment benefits in March 2021, according to the EPI. “People were thinking they would get called back to work, but they’re actually unemployed,” says Gould.
TIME/Next Advisor
April 16, 2021
“The way a recession can really hurt people just starting out can have lasting effects,” Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist and the director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, previously told Insider. “There’s a lot of evidence that the first postgrad job you get sets the stage in some important way for later.”
Business Insider
April 16, 2021
If you wanted to find an original text for the Biden administration’s foreign policy, it would be an 83-page report by a Washington think tank released in the thick of the 2020 presidential race. In 2018, midway through Trump’s term, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace set out to reimagine U.S. foreign policy. The institution assembled about a dozen specialists in economics and international affairs who’d worked in Democratic and Republican administrations. Among them was Sullivan, a senior fellow. He made a point to talk with labor leaders. “The fact that he was reaching out to me when I was at AFL-CIO was a sign that he was trying to expand his horizons,” Thea Lee, who was then deputy chief of staff at the labor federation and is now president of the Economic Policy Institute, told me.
The Atlantic
April 16, 2021
Before COVID-19, the gap between the bottom and top rungs of the economic ladder grew over many years. Between 1979 and 2015, the top 1% saw its income grow 229% in the U.S., according to the Economic Policy Institute. Income for the bottom 90% increased 46%. Federal tax cuts in 2017 disproportionately benefited the wealthy.
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Those people are in trouble if benefits end before they have work, and not even a robust rebound will immediately provide all the jobs needed, said Elise Gould, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
“Once evictions are allowed again, a lot of people who couldn’t pay the rent are in trouble,” she said. “Recovery is not going to happen in one fell swoop. I can’t imagine that inequality won’t be higher.”
Atlanta Journal Constitution
April 16, 2021
For example, investments in the power grid are “needed to protect from catastrophic weather events, but also to allow us to move to renewable sources,” says Robert E. Scott, a senior economist and director of trade and manufacturing policy research at nonprofit think tank Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Or better broadband internet access could make less commuting (and less carbon emissions) possible, he says.
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And that tracks for green jobs, too. Manufacturing jobs, including those in clean energy, will “generate large numbers of excellent jobs for non-college-educated workers,” says Scott. “Those are the people who’ve been left behind for the last 20 years.”
CNBC
April 16, 2021
Conversely, the decline of unions has played a big role in rising inequality and wage stagnation. And workers have lost bargaining power as weak antitrust policies have allowed corporations to gain ever more market power.
New York Times
April 16, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute noted the key role that Amazon workers played in the pandemic, said they deserved “a fair election,” and called for the PRO Act to become law.
Reuters
April 16, 2021
The Bessemer results “reveal a broken union election system,” Celine McNicholas, labor counsel at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said in a statement. “It is clear that if policymakers do not reform our nation’s labor law system, then they are effectively denying workers a meaningful right to a union and collective bargaining.’’
AP News
April 16, 2021
Under the Trump administration, the NLRB “systematically rolled back workers’ rights,” according to an analysis by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. President Joe Biden has already signaled he intends to be much more pro-worker than his predecessor, releasing a video in support of unionization efforts and against corporate “anti-union propaganda” – as Amazon employees were voting.
Markets Insider
April 16, 2021
The decline in collective bargaining has translated to a loss of $1.56 per hour worked for the median worker, the equivalent of $3,250 for a full-time, full-year worker, according to he Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. “It has also contributed to the widening wage inequality gap, as unions disproportionately benefit low-wage earners,” EPI said.
Market Watch
April 16, 2021