But the challenges he — and, ultimately, Biden — face are daunting. Even before the pandemic, income inequality was soaring, with earnings rising much more quickly at the top. And now nearly 16 percent of workers are either unemployed or working fewer hours than they were before, many of them Black and Latino, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Boston Globe
January 19, 2021
States and local government, meanwhile, could be forced to further cut their already strained budgets to make up for losses in tax revenue.
“Without more aid they will have to make more cuts, and cut services and that will disproportionately affect lower income families and communities,” said Heidi Shierholz, who served as chief economist for the Labor Department during the Obama administration and is now at the Economic Policy Institute. She said comprehensive aid for state and local governments and additional benefits for the unemployed should be the priority in the next round of measures.
Bloomberg
January 19, 2021
In Greenville County, monthly child care costs are just shy of $500 for one child, according to the Economic Policy Institute. And the annual average cost of infant care in South Carolina is about $7,000, which is one of the lowest rates in the U.S.
Money Magazine
January 19, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute also is pushing for an end to sub-minimum wages for tipped workers. Workers who get tips — including, of course, waitstaff — depend on those tips, which once were thought of as a token of gratitude, as a central part of their income. It is one big reason why the pandemic has been so rough on restaurant workers who now have their customers take food out rather than eat in.
Poynter
January 19, 2021
“What’s happened with unemployment, to me, has sort of most exposed the myth of the unique digital platform or gig worker,” said Celine McNicholas, the director of government affairs for the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “You can dress it up, you can put it on a phone and make it an app and make it pretty and make it seem like it’s something else, but at the end of the day, it’s misclassification, and we need to tighten those standards in the Department of Labor to crack down on it.”
Washington Post
January 19, 2021
Distance learning during the pandemic has been an abject failure. Despite the heroic efforts of many teachers, school staff and administrators, we’re failing our kids. A recent report by the Economic Policy Institute shows that we’ve thwarted child development and increased the equity gap between our students and families. That’s on top of the fact that kids aren’t learning like they should.
The Reporter
January 19, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute said that if the U.S. kept pace since then, the minimum wage would have reached $18.28 in 2013.
NBC2
January 19, 2021
According to the Economic Policy Institute, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Michigan had the highest Black unemployment rates in the country at 35.5% — double the white unemployment rate, which was 17.5%.
Lansing State Journal
January 19, 2021
Black men on average make 71 cents for every dollar paid to white men, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Black women, meanwhile, earn 63 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men. That adds up to a loss of $24,127 a year for Black women, or $965,078 over the course of a work-life spanning 40 years, according to an analysis by the American Association of University Women.
USA Today
January 19, 2021
Some 26.8 million U.S. workers “are either unemployed, otherwise out of work because of the virus, or have seen a drop in hours and pay because of the pandemic,” according to economist Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute.
Common Dreams
January 19, 2021