“A ton of resources are wasted during a really crucial time … just having to go through this ad hoc stimulus and relief and recovery, and it just doesn’t have to be like that,” said Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist at the Labor Department. “We can automate things to make it so Congress could step in if they ever needed to do more relief, but it would mean that the basic structure of relief and recovery would be there already.”
…
“Waiting until the very eleventh hour to extend the pandemic unemployment insurance programs, there have been millions of people who saw the lapses in benefits,” Shierholz said. “To lawmakers who have a cushion in their bank accounts and if they don’t get paid for a couple of weeks they’re fine, that is not the case for most people.”
VOX
February 23, 2021
Black workers are more likely than others to be employed in frontline essential jobs, according to a June 2020 analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. Black Americans make up more than a quarter of public transit workers, nearly 20 percent of child care and social service workers, and 18 percent of trucking, warehouse and postal service workers.
PBS Newshour
February 23, 2021
Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), said that $15 in 2025 would be an “appropriate” level since it would put a dent in “poverty wages.”
“There is a kind of a large hole that we’ve dug ourselves in having low minimum wages relative to what workers need,” he told Insider. “And so then I think it does make sense to have some kind of gradual set of increases, because you do want to give time for some businesses to accommodate the higher wage schedule.”
Business Insider
February 22, 2021
According to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, the wage increase would affect nearly one-third of workers in Hinson’s district. She and other members of the House Budget Committee will review the proposal during a hearing on Monday
Iowa Public Radio
February 22, 2021
To read more about the national teacher shortages
The Economic Policy Institute
The teacher shortage is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought
Virginia Public Media
February 22, 2021
- Counter: “That claim of job loss isn’t supported by evidence — it’s likely an overestimate of negative employment impact. But even if you accept their findings, they still find the benefits far outweigh the costs,” Heidi Shierholz, the Labor Department’s chief economist under Barack Obama, told CBS.
Washington Post
February 22, 2021
Black people also suffer inequities in the labor market. For fifty years now, the unemployment rate of Black people has remained twice the rate of whites. In Washington, D.C., the city where John Thompson and I were born and raised, the jobless rate for Black people was more than six times the rate of whites in 2019. And Black households in 2019 earned just 61 cents on the dollar when compared to white households, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Progressive
February 22, 2021
As Insider reported last month, research from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute suggests raising the minimum wage would increase income for nearly one in three Black workers. According to the institute, 23% of people who could see a boost in wages would be Black or Latinx women.
Teen Vogue
February 22, 2021
An organizing boom has hit the nonprofit world as workers at numerous legal aid groups, cultural institutions and advocacy organizations ranging from local social service providers to the American Civil Liberties…[paywall].
Law360
February 22, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute estimates raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 “would lift pay for nearly 32 million workers across the country.” According to an EPI study, 32 million workers — or 21% of the workforce — would see a raise if the minimum wage was increased to $15 an hour. The study also suggests that the increase “would provide an additional $107 billion in wages for the country’s lowest-paid workers,” the average of whom would see an additional $3,300 a year.
Media Matters for America
February 22, 2021