“It’s not going to be just a quick, automatic bounceback, especially for workers,” said Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy. “Even in the modest job recovery that we’ve seen, it’s been uneven across racial and ethnic groups. And more women have exited the labor market relative to men.”
Washington Post
January 15, 2021
According to Robert Scott of the Economic Policy Institute, if we could revalue our currency, “the U.S. trade deficit could be reduced by $200 to $500 billion, raising demand for U.S. exports (which are dominated by manufactured goods). Stopping currency manipulation and revaluing the dollar could create 2 to 5 million jobs”.
Industry Week
January 15, 2021
“As always, there are some who seem more concerned about the rise in federal budget deficits and public debt than by the rise in joblessness and losses of income generated by the shock,” Josh Bivens, director of research, at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote in a blog post. “But prioritizing the restraint of debt in coming years over the restoration of pre-crisis unemployment rates is bad economics,” Bivens added.
Newsweek
January 15, 2021
New York Times
January 15, 2021
Additionally, the pandemic has also significantly impacted education. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the economic shocks following this economic recession and multiple natural disasters, such as Hurricane Zeta, have led to extreme cuts in education budgets. This shows detrimental effects on education outcomes and test scores. To uplift children and reduce educational inequities, a three-step course was created to help by reliving, recovering, and rebuilding our community.
Medium
January 15, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute said the actual situation is even worse than indicated by official figures, estimating that 26.8 million workers have lost their jobs or seen their hours cut due to the pandemic.
World Socialist Website
January 15, 2021
“As we build out of the pandemic, the question is going to be: Do we build toward a more equitable economy where workers have a voice, where they have leverage to get wage increases that are long overdue?” said Celine McNicholas, the director of government affairs at the Economic Policy Institute. “Or are we kind of returning to a system where you have low union coverage, very little worker voice, worker power, workers are not sharing in wage increases as productivity increases, and they’re working in unsafe conditions without many protections.”
The Washington Post
January 15, 2021
The need across the nation is extreme, with Covid-19 cases rising and the U.S. death toll nearing 390,000. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) noted Thursday that “another 1.2 million people applied for Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits last week, including 965,000 people who applied for regular state UI and 284,000 who applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA).”
“There are now 26.8 million workers who are either unemployed, otherwise out of work because of the virus, or have seen a drop in hours and pay because of the pandemic,” Heidi Shierholz, EPI senior economist and director of policy, explained in a blog post for the think tank. “Further, we started losing jobs again in December; layoffs are rising and the virus is surging.”
Common Dreams
January 15, 2021
The outbreak of Covid-19 sent the unemployment rate skyrocketing. Front-line workers stepped up to ensure Americans stayed healthy, teachers adapted to online teaching, and businesses provided innovative services to stay afloat. As of July 2020, 24.5 million Americans were unemployed or otherwise out of work following the outbreak of the pandemic, the Economic Policy Institute reported. One in four workers have had difficulty paying their bills during the pandemic, according to August data from Pew Research Center. Over the summer, the economy was slowly bouncing back. The United States added 9.3 million jobs by July, MarketWatch reported.
Forbes
January 15, 2021