Raising the minimum wage is not a “far left” or “liberal” issue. It is a moral issue that would, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, lift pay for up to 33 million low-wage workers— including nearly 40% of all African-American workers.
CNN
March 8, 2021
Elise Gould, senior economist at the nonprofit think tank Economic Policy Institute, said the bill’s passage can’t come soon enough.
“It is clear that policymakers need to step up right now to provide relief, and the $1.9 trillion relief and recovery bill is at the scale of the problem and is essential for a robust and equitable recovery,” she wrote.
She also called for more aid to local and state governments. Biden’s American Rescue Plan includes about $350 billion in emergency funding for those entities.
“Given that state and local governments face many new expenses in figuring out how to open schools safely, it is imperative that additional aid be provided to state and local governments so that new costs won’t squeeze out necessary hiring,” Gould wrote. “Policymakers must not shortchange aid to state and local governments, which is essential to a robust recovery.”
Courthouse News
March 8, 2021
In a meticulous analysis for the respected Economic Policy Institute, Monique Morrissey debunked the Yankee Institute report, revealing it was based on a cherry-picked sample of workers, used nonstandard control variables, and inflated the cost of retiree benefits in the public sector, while minimizing their cost in the private sector. Morrissey concluded that Connecticut public sector workers without college degrees are compensated somewhat more than those in the private sector, while those with college and graduate degrees are compensated somewhat less than in the private sector, even when factoring in more generous public sector benefits. In short, Morrissey writes, “taxpayers are getting a bargain!”
Connecticut Examiner
March 8, 2021
Robert Scott, a senior international economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told Al Jazeera that the US has limited options to put pressure on China.
“Certainly we can sanction China in international arenas. We can consider putting limits on their diplomats, limit their voting rights in international forums like the International Monetary Fund where China has sought increased representation,” he said.
Al Jazeera
March 8, 2021
“If you’re a low-wage worker, you’re far less likely to have access to paid sick days,” Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), told Yahoo Money. “So that simple fact of getting to a vaccine site, spending the time there, doing it again, and then potentially having side effects could make economically fragile families pass.”
“It’s very much of an issue,” she added.
Yahoo Finance
March 8, 2021
A majority of domestic workers are women of color and are three times as likely to live in poverty than other workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute, an independent economic research organization.
Capital News Service
March 8, 2021
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Medicaid has done “the heavy lifting” in providing coverage for people who lost their job and employer-sponsored health insurance, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute.
VOX
March 8, 2021
U.S. employers added more jobs than forecast in February and the unemployment rate declined, suggesting the labor market is clawing its way forward again following several disappointing months. Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, speaks with Bloomberg’s Caroline Hyde, Romaine Bostick and Joe Weisenthal on “What’d You Miss?” about the U.S. jobs report.
Bloomberg TV
March 8, 2021
One Asian American woman recommended by Sanders was Thea Lee, the president of the Economic Policy Institute, who testified before his committee last month on wages, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private discussions. The lack of consultation with Sanders on Tanden was seen as a major misstep by the White House, considering his top role on the committee that would process the OMB job and Tanden’s history tangling with Sanders’s supporters in his 2016 presidential bid.
Washington Post
March 8, 2021
L’expansion de Medicaid réduit également la mortalité des patients: un document de travail publié en janvier a conclu que l’expansion de Medicaid avait entraîné 19 200 décès de moins au cours de ses quatre premières années. Une autre étude a révélé que l’expansion de Medicaid avait conduit à un meilleur accès aux soins médicaux, à une meilleure gestion de la maladie et à un meilleur bien-être financier des patients. Au cours de la pandémie de Covid-19, Medicaid a fait «le gros du travail» en fournissant une couverture aux personnes qui ont perdu leur emploi et une assurance maladie parrainée par l’employeur, selon une analyse de l’Economic Policy Institute.
France 24
March 8, 2021