Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous and Sibile Marcellus discuss EPI’s latest report.
Yahoo Finance
December 7, 2020
Economic disparities are overwhelmingly disproportionate for Black Americans. At the height of the pandemic, the unemployment rate spiked for African Americans more than any other racial group, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In 2018, the overall income for Black Americans was about 42% lower than white Americans, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
ABC News
December 7, 2020
Geographically, the largest increases in Hispanic unemployment during the same period were in Massachusetts (-26%), Nevada (-25.5%), and New Jersey (-18%). States where Hispanic employment was among the least affected, according to the Economic Policy Institute, include New Mexico (-4.6%), Utah (-6%), Texas (-9.3%), and Georgia (-9.1%).
CNBC
December 7, 2020
And that’s just the federal share of taxes. To find the total tax burden on the top 1%, GOBankingRates analyzed 2019 data from the Tax Foundation on federal and state income tax rates for single filers and married couples filing jointly. The average annual income of the top 1% was sourced from the Economic Policy Institute. GOBankingRates then calculated both the effective and marginal tax rates on the top 1% in every state using an in-house calculator. The study also found how much the top 1% spends on sales taxes by looking at information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center. Property tax was excluded due to the lack of consistent data for home values of the top 1% in every state.
GO Banking Rates
December 7, 2020
Close to one in four workers between the ages of 16 and 24 is unemployed, according to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute. There is hope for young workers like Risse, but avoiding a career derailment and a lost generation will require young job-seekers and employers alike to focus more on connection.
Fortune
December 7, 2020
If the emergency pandemic programs were to be reinstated, the economy “would be boosted by 3.5 percent, and 5.1 million more jobs would be added in 2021,” said Economic Policy Institute Senior Economist Elise Gould and Director of Research Josh Bivens, in a report released Wednesday.
“If the effective safety net functions provided by these programs were maintained through 2021, millions of workers would be better able to avoid economic catastrophe while out of work due to the pandemic,” they concluded.
NBC News
December 7, 2020
Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and former chief Labor Department economist in the Obama administration, said the picture will turn even more grim if Congress doesn’t provide additional aid right away.
In particular, she noted, budget-strained state and local governments will make further cuts in spending, setting back the recovery potentially by years as happened after the Great Recession in 2008-09.
States and local government activity accounts for 12% to 15% of the national economy, she said, and it will be a “massive drag” on growth if there’s no help for the governments. “They’ll be like little anti-stimulus machines,” she said.
LA Times
December 7, 2020
In the coming weeks some 12 million Americans will stop receiving unemployment benefits, the CDC’s nationwide eviction moratorium will expire, student loan borrowers will resume payments on their debts, and other financial relief programs will expire.
“It’s kind of devastating,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
“We were already in this terrible situation now the caseloads are rising and the relief is going to end. What that means for the economy moving forward is, I hate to say it, but we could be seeing a double-dip to the recession.”
Friday’s jobs report made it clear to Gould that it is “absolutely necessary to reinstate and extend all the unemployment programs.” That would include Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which through the CARES Act, enabled gig workers, self-employed workers and independent contractors to qualify for unemployment benefits.
MarketWatch
December 7, 2020
Biden rolled out his “Made in America” plan during a speech in Warren in September, committing his administration to spending $400 billion on domestically produced products, creating a 10 percent tax to penalize U.S. companies that offshore jobs and a 10 percent credit to companies to invest in U.S. jobs and close loopholes in Trump’s 2017 tax cut plan, including an exemption on the first 10 percent of profit for a company that locates production or call centers overseas.
Will it make a difference?
Maybe not, said Robert Scott, director of trade and manufacturing policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive nonprofit think tank in Washington.
He said the effects of the plan are “marginal at best,” but he said the tax penalty could “create incentives for companies to bring jobs home.”
Biden also plans to raise the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent after Trump had lowered it from 39 percent.
Scott predicted the increase would generate more taxes while having little to no impact on job creation.
Bridge Michigan
December 7, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimated December 2 that 5.1 million more jobs would be created if the government kept open the suite of pandemic unemployment insurance programs in 2021, including the extra $600-per-week benefit.
Yahoo Finance
December 7, 2020