Media clips

• Obama staffers amazed at how ‘different’ Biden’s approach to stimulus is

  One is Heidi Shierholz, who served as chief economist to Obama’s secretary of Labor. “If my 2010 self could see just how different we’re handling this recovery than we handled that one — when we were just pulling our hair out, because Congress was turning towards austerity when the unemployment rate was literally over 9% — it was just an outrageous approach to the recovery at that time.”

  Shierholz, who is now director of policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, noted that decade saw an “incredibly weak and slow” economic recovery, which she attributed to Congress not providing the kind of fiscal relief that would have boosted aggregate demand to get the economy going, “and we are not making that mistake this time.”

  Business Insider April 2, 2021
• Trailblazing women in labor law: Lynn Rhinehart

  Features Q&A with Lynn Rhinehart.

  Law360 April 2, 2021
• Biden seeks to reverse decades of disparity in next economic move

  Spending on investment outside of housing rose an average of 3.4% a year from 2000 through 2019, down from 5.2% the prior two decades and a heady 7.2% in the 1960s — when tax rates were substantially higher.

  Companies have the cash to grow, but with wealth and income skewed to the top, “there’s not enough customers to buy the new output,” said Josh Bivens, director of research at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

  Bloomberg April 2, 2021
• Pandemic recovery picks up speed as employers add 916,000 jobs

  However, economists caution that, while better numbers lie ahead, there is still a long way to go. The economy would need to add around 950,000 jobs a month for the next 10 months to return to pre-pandemic levels.

  “A year into the recession, the labor market is still down 9.5 million jobs from where it stood immediately before the Covid-19 shock. If we add in jobs that should have been created over that time to absorb new workers, we’re facing a jobs shortfall today of nearly 12 million jobs,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

  NBC News April 2, 2021
• For union battling Amazon, victory could bring a stalemate

  But initial collective bargaining agreements usually take years to hammer out at the negotiating table. More than half of workplaces that form unions are unable to reach an initial contract within a year, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, and 37 percent of newly formed private-sector unions still have no contract after two years.

  “It’s so difficult to hold an employer accountable,” said Celine McNicholas, director of government affairs and labor counsel at EPI. And even if the union engages in “this protracted legal battle, you know the penalty that the employer is facing is quite frankly minimal.”

  Politico April 2, 2021
• Pandemic recovery picks up speed as employers add 916,000 jobs
  But while some sectors are back to their pre-pandemic employment levels, the overall US economy still has 8.4 million fewer jobs than it did before Covid-19 related job losses started a year ago.

  “Even at this pace, it could take more than a year to dig out of the total jobs shortfall,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. “However, today’s number is certainly a promising sign for the recovery.
  CNN Business April 2, 2021
• A pandemic mystery: the rise in Asian American unemployment

  A recent report by the liberal Economic Policy Institute found Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders saw the biggest increase of any group in state unemployment rates compared to white, Black and Hispanic workers from the first quarter of 2020 through the fourth quarter.

  Asian American unemployment rose by 4.6 percentage points in the states where EPI was able to estimate it, compared with 3.9 percentage points for Hispanic and Black workers and 2.3 percentage points for white workers.

  The EPI estimates are based on a survey conducted monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics but use numbers modeled at the state level by state labor departments.

  New York, Virginia, and Hawaii — which saw its crucial tourism industry hit hard by the pandemic — all saw Asian American joblessness jump the most in the EPI report. In California, the jump was the second largest of any group.

  MarketWatch April 2, 2021
• Across America: When the economy ‘bounces back,’ who actually recovers?

  Features interview with Elise Gould.

  In November 2020, the Economic Policy Institute estimated 25 million American workers are either unemployed, underemployed or have pulled out of the workforce entirely, many of whom are low-wage earners.

  Could a heated economic recovery pull these workers back into the labor force? Or will America’s most vulnerable workers be left behind?

  1A April 2, 2021
• H-1B: Is skilled-worker visa exploited by outsourcers?

  Outsourcing firms dominated the list of the top companies receiving new H-1B visas last year, according to a new report.

  “Instead of being used to fill genuine labor shortages in skilled occupations without negatively impacting U.S. labor standards, the latest data show that the H-1B’s biggest users are companies that have an outsourcing business model,” said the report by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

  …

  According to the institute’s report, more than half the top 30 companies receiving new H-1B visas in 2020 were outsourcers. “Those 17 outsourcing firms alone were issued 20,000 H-1B visas, nearly one-quarter of the total 85,000 annual limit,” said the report by the institute’s director of immigration law and policy research Daniel Costa and Howard University professor Ron Hira, who studies the H-1B.

  The Mercury News April 2, 2021
• Biden is splitting with Obama on the economy and the proof is in their stimulus plans

  “If my 2010 self could see just how different we’re handling this recovery than we handled that one — when we were just pulling our hair out, because Congress was turning towards austerity when the unemployment rate was literally over 9% — it was just an outrageous approach to the recovery at that time,” Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist to Obama’s secretary of Labor, told Insider. “And so this is just incredibly different.”

  Business Insider April 2, 2021