Now, he’s torpedoed a compromise bill amid a massive spike in coronavirus cases and a slowing recovery, with fewer jobs being created and more workers applying for unemployment benefits. A report from the Economic Policy Institute says that without more virus aid, “millions more jobs will be lost.“
The American Independent
December 14, 2020
Today, Black workers make up about 68% of the workforce in the poultry industry in Mississippi, according to data compiled by the Economic Policy Institute. However, Stuesse said, it’s hard to get an accurate count of the number of foreign-born workers. It is estimated at 8.4% by the same dataset but that likely “significantly undercounts” undocumented workers, she said.
The American South
December 14, 2020
The Brookings Institute and the New York Times published a list of 100 pieces of environmental legislation alone that this administration has trashed or is in the process of trashing. The Economic Policy Institute published another 50 dealing with labor protections.
Baltimore Sun
December 14, 2020
During Biden’s campaign, the incoming president talked about raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, up from the current $7.25 an hour. Without Congressional support, Biden will not be able to raise the federal minimum wage, but he could get part way there through an increase to the minimum wage of workers on federal contracts.
Biden could accomplish the increase through an executive order, according to Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist and the director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute. The hourly boost could affect the pay of 5 million workers, Shierholz estimated.
CNET
December 14, 2020
The impact of long-term unemployment on workers and families is dramatic, said Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. Since the additional $600 a week in federal jobless benefits expired at the end of July, unemployed workers have been getting by on regular state jobless benefits, which in Minnesota replace half of a worker’s prior earnings.
“In other words, we have lots of people who have gone a very long time with serious cutbacks in their income, so that means living standards drop, poverty increases, and all of the things that go along with you just had a massive cut in your income is happening to families left and right,” she said.
And with more unemployed workers than there are job openings, she said that some people will have no choice but to take jobs that weren’t as good the ones they had before.
“You lose not just the time you were unemployed, but also you have this setback in that many will get a job that’s for lower pay or perhaps lower rank,” she said. “That has some stickiness to it. It puts you on a different trajectory.”
Minneapolis Star Tribune
December 14, 2020
And based on an analysis released by the Economic Policy Institute, people of color (Black, Latino, Asian American and other non-whites) account for 43% of all essential workers in the nation amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Good Morning America
December 14, 2020
Outdated unemployment insurance systems in some states collapsed from the influx of applicants who lost their job during the pandemic. As a result, only 71% of applicants received benefits by April 11, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Newsweek
December 14, 2020
But as Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) wrote for The American Prospect last month, “there is plenty that President Biden can do to support working people that doesn’t require Congress.”
“One key area is the federal contracting system. While the president cannot—without Congress—increase the federal minimum wage, the president can, through executive power, increase the minimum wage of workers on federal contracts,” Shierholz noted. “The impact would be substantial.”
Common Dreams
December 14, 2020
In late October as the coronavirus pandemic raged, the Economic Policy Institute released a study showing that it isn’t just morally right but an economic necessity to deal with poverty in this country and fast. “If America does not address what’s happening with visionary social and economic policy,” as that study put it, “the health and well-being of the nation are at stake. What we need is long-term economic policy that establishes justice, promotes the general welfare, rejects decades of austerity, and builds strong social programs that lift society from below.”
Common Dreams
December 14, 2020
This is not simply an esoteric parliamentary debate that has no impact on people’s lives. PAYGO rules, and austerity politics in general, have caused real pain. In a paper entitled “The bad economics of PAYGO,” the Economic Policy Institute noted that, “The recovery from the Great Recession was the slowest in post-World War II history, and the degree of fiscal austerity can entirely explain its slowness.”
This “slowness” meant increased unemployment, increased hunger, decreases in access to health care, and an overall increase in mortality. Yes, austerity politics kill.
Jacobin
December 14, 2020