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Outdated unemployment insurance systems in some states collapsed from the influx of applicants who lost their job during the pandemic.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
According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), extending and reinstating enhanced jobless benefits through 2021, in addition to getting the pandemic under control, could save or create 5.1 million jobs and increase total personal income by more than $440 billion.
Forbes
December 14, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute compared median household incomes in 2019 to those in 2007 (before onset of the Great Recession) and determined incomes are up 21.1% for Hispanics, 11.3% for Asians, 8.2% for Whites and 6.3% for Blacks.
Omaha World-Herald
December 14, 2020
Union membership in the United States has been on the decline since the mid-1980s. Lawrence Mishel is a distinguished fellow with the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank based in Washington, D.C. He said unions in the private sector have been declining because of employer attacks that started in the 1970s and limited people’s ability to obtain collective bargaining.
That doesn’t mean unions are unpopular among Americans. A national study in 2017 found that 48% of nonunionized workers would vote to join a union if they could.
“So what we really have is a situation where there is a big gap between the representation that people want and what they’re able to obtain, and primarily because our laws governing collective bargaining have very limited penalties and they basically have tilted the landscape towards employers,” Mishel said.
Arizona Public Media
December 14, 2020
El seguro de desempleo es uno de los estímulos más eficientes para la economía. Los economistas de el Economic Policy Institute explican que reinstaurando y ampliando los beneficios se pueden crear más empleos en un momento en el que los trabajadores están abandonando la posibilidad de tener un puesto de trabajo.
Las cifras de desempleo correspondientes a noviembre muestran que había 26.1 millones de desempleados o personas sin empleo por el virus.
El Diario
December 14, 2020
“Republicans in the Senate allowed the across-the-board $600 increase in weekly UI (unemployment insurance) benefits to expire at the end of July. Last week was the 19th week of unemployment in this pandemic for which recipients did not receive the extra payment,” Heidi Shierholz, policy director at the Economic Policy Institute, said in the first of several tweets commenting on the BLS numbers.
“And w/o congressional action, PUA & PEUC”—the federal jobless aid programs—”will expire on Dec 26. Millions of workers are depending on these programs (DOL reports 13.1 million in the latest data). When they expire, millions of these workers & their families will be financially devastated,” she added.
People's Weekly World
December 14, 2020
Between 2009 and 2018, hospital CEO compensation grew 53%, researchers at the Economic Policy Institute found.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
December 14, 2020
More than 55 million workers across the U.S. qualify as essential, a total that includes health-care workers, according to an estimate from the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank.
The Wall Street Journal
December 14, 2020