“It is a big deal already because we’re seeing over a third of the unemployed have now been long-term unemployed,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “That’s going to be continuing to rise.”
Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette
January 7, 2021
Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington D.C., understands that plenty of people feeling the economic weight from the pandemic. Gould says stimulating the economy is definitely always important, but spending must be done safely.
“There’s plenty of people hurting. You could be donating some of that money to people to don’t have enough to put food on their plates,” says Gould. ”We want to stimulate the economy, but we want to keep people safe, so I think it’s really important we keep that second part in mind, and people are going to spend their money, let’s have it be things that don’t require in-person risk.”
Cleveland.com
January 7, 2021
But do universal payments reduce poverty? A research team ran the numbers on the CARES Act checks. Ben Zipperer of the Economic Policy Institute summarizes the results: Despite limited targeting, the $1,200 checks kept nearly 8.2 million Americans from poverty independent of unemployment insurance (another 7.2 million were kept from poverty because of unemployment insurance alone; combined, the two kept 13.2 million more out of poverty).
Nonprofit Quarterly
January 7, 2021
In 2019, the median Black household earned just 61 cents for every dollar of income for the median Caucasian household, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Tuckson noted that the pandemic’s devastating economic effects are likely to widen the wage gap for Black workers for years to come and magnify health inequities.
City Beat
January 7, 2021
On January 13, the Future of the Middle Class Initiative at Brookings will host an event with leading policy experts from the Urban Institute, the Economic Policy Institute, the Niskanen Center, and Brookings. These scholars will present different options and ideas for state and local funding reform and participate in a panel discussion on the different advantages of their respective plans.
Brookings Institution
January 7, 2021
Others criticized the rule for its potential financial impact on workers. According to a tweet from Heidi Schierholz, a former DOL official and director of policy at the think tank Economic Policy Institute, the rule could cost U.S. workers “at least $3.7 billion annually.“
Transport Dive
January 7, 2021
Backstory: Even most older Americans report that they don’t have enough money saved for retirement, with the median family holding just $7,800 in 401(k)s, IRAs and other self-directed accounts, according to a 2019 study from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Axios
January 7, 2021
While Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia said the rule brings “long-needed clarity” for workers and employers, labor advocates have argued that it makes it easier for gig companies like Uber (UBER), Lyft (LYFT), and Doordash (DASH) to classify full-time employees as contractors. In comments submitted after the rule was proposed, the Economic Policy Institute calculated that the rule could cost employees $3.7 billion in lost pay and benefits every year.
Yahoo
January 7, 2021
Labor Department rules reducing workers’ pay. One rule “gives employers of tipped workers a loophole allowing them to capture more than $700 million annually from workers,” according to the Economic Policy Institute. Another rule freezes foreign farmworkers’ wages.
Newsweek
January 7, 2021
Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington D.C., understands that plenty of people feeling the economic weight from the pandemic. Gould says stimulating the economy is definitely always important, but spending must be done safely.
“There’s plenty of people hurting. You could be donating some of that money to people to don’t have enough to put food on their plates,” says Gould. ”We want to stimulate the economy, but we want to keep people safe, so I think it’s really important we keep that second part in mind, and people are going to spend their money, let’s have it be things that don’t require in-person risk.”
Cleveland.com
January 7, 2021