DOL didn’t say how much workers would lose by being misclassified as independent contractors, though it conceded “this rule could leave workers with fewer critical job-based benefits, including health insurance’—during a pandemic, Scott noted—-“and retirement.”
The Economic Policy Institute calculated the costs, though: $3 billion yearly in lost wages for all independent contractors—truckers, warehouse workers, adjunct professors, some fast food workers, and others—nationwide. Cash-strapped states would lose payroll and workers comp revenue and there would be “a $750 million hit to social insurance programs” including jobless benefits, EPI calculated.
The present and potential “independent contractors” aren’t the only workers who would take an economic hit under Trump regime midnight rules. So would workers, most of them workers of color, who try to survive on tips.
They’d lose at least $700 million annually, EPI Senior Economist Heidi Shierholz reported after DOL unveiled its final “midnight” tipped workers rule on Dec. 11. And that DOL estimate was in the preliminary version, in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic hit.
People’s World
January 12, 2021
Center for American Progress
January 12, 2021
According to the economic policy institute, “In order to stop the economic bleeding caused by the coronavirus pandemic and build a strong recovery, this country needs roughly $3 trillion in relief.”
ABC4-TV
January 12, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute’s Working Economics blog on July 16, 2020, posted an article by Josh Bivens entitled “Recovering fully from the coronavirus shock will require large increases in federal debt — and there’s nothing wrong with that.” This line of thought troubled us then, and troubles us even more now given the events of last week.
Detroit News
January 12, 2021
And though the pandemic has hurt all women, women of color are bearing the brunt of the pain. “The December job loss was definitely concentrated among Black and Hispanic women. No question,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute. “For white women, it’s a total disaster, but that’s dwarfed by what’s happening in other demographic groups.”
Huffpost
January 12, 2021
“With hiring and job openings at these levels, the economy is facing a long, slow recovery without additional action from Congress,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
Reuters
January 12, 2021
In November, the number of job openings softened to 6.5 million from 6.6 million the previous month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics released this month, while hires were essentially unchanged, increasing to 5.98 million from 5.91 million. Layoffs rose to 2 million from 1.7 million on the month.
This increase was described Tuesday as “troubling” by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank. “The latest congressional relief bill is an important step toward addressing some of this pain, but it is not at the scale of the problem. I’m hopeful that more relief measures are on the horizon for increasingly desperate workers and their families. Senate Republicans forced the December bill to be far too small,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the EPI.
“The U.S. economy is seeing a significantly slower hiring pace than we experienced in May or June — roughly where it was before the recession, which is a big problem given that we have only recovered just over half of the job losses from this spring,” the EPI said. “And job openings are now substantially below where they were before the recession began.”
There were 10.7 million unemployed workers, but only 6.5 million job openings in November. “This translates into a job seeker ratio of about 1.6 unemployed workers to every job opening,” Gould said, “or for every 16 workers who were officially counted as unemployed, there were only available jobs for 10 of them. That means, no matter what they did, there were no jobs for 4.2 million unemployed workers.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics data only covers through November, so is likely rosier than the actual jobs landscape, according to EPI. “It doesn’t even capture December’s job losses, which were substantial. With hiring and job openings at these levels, the economy is facing a long, slow recovery without additional action from Congress,” Gould added. The job losses, thus far, have been concentrated in the services sector, signaling a two-tired economic and jobs recovery.
MarketWatch
January 12, 2021
Joining us is the senior economist for the Economic Policy Institute. we love having you on the program. We just had Jim Paulsen say jobless figures artificially high-end jobs will quickly come back. do you agree?
Elise Gould: I appreciate his optimism, but it is not as simple as that. We have had weakened demand for several months. yes, shuttering has been a problem. We want businesses to open up, but many people have suffered for many months, they are behind on their rent, their mortgage, not able to put food on the table. To think they are going to rush out and spend money is wrongheaded.
Bloomberg TV
January 11, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute noted that long-term unemployment, of 27 weeks or more, continues to rise, increasing by 27,000 in December.
Route Fifty
January 11, 2021
People wait for the bus on Park Street in the Frog Hollow neighborhood of Hartford. The top 1% of the families in Connecticut make 37.2 times more than the bottom 99%, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Connecticut Mirror
January 11, 2021