The rule would cost workers more than $3.7 billion annually — at least $400 million in new annual paperwork costs, and at least $3.3 billion every year in the form of reduced pay and benefits, says Heidi Shierholz, director of policy for the non-partisan Economic Policy Institute. Additionally, social insurance funds (Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment Insurance and Workers’ Compensation) would lose at least $750 million annually in the form of reduced employer contributions.
St. Louis/Southern Illinois Labor Tribune
November 24, 2020
Income support for caregivers is disaster relief and sorely needed economic stimulus combined, and it will keep mothers attached to the labor force addressing a pandemic-related employment gender gap. The Economic Policy Institute shows the importance of promoting women in the labor force to maintain economic growth. Keeping women attached to the labor force is also necessary to our post-COVID economic recovery.
The Hill
November 24, 2020
“I’m very happy about the Yellen announcement,” said Heidi Shierholz, who leads the economic policy team at the progressive Economic Policy Institute and served in the Obama administration, citing Yellen’s strong performance as Fed chair. “One key thing about her: Her decisions are guided by data and evidence, not ideology and not partisanship ― it’s data. It’s evidence.”
Huffington Post
November 24, 2020
But one of the bleakest aspects of pandemic hazard pay is that it was never actually particularly widespread to begin with. A survey conducted by the Economic Policy Institute in June found that only about 30 percent of people working outside of their homes during the pandemic had received hazard pay increases, and that number is almost certainly lower now that most of the businesses that previously adopted hazard pay have ended the practice. That’s especially dismal given that so many essential workers are also low-wage workers: As the Brookings Institution recently noted, nearly half of all essential workers earn less than a living wage.
The New Republic
November 23, 2020
Progressives Pressure Biden on Health Agenda: More than a dozen progressive groups are pushing Biden to stock federal agencies with people who favor their domestic policy agenda. The Progressive Change Institute, the Center for Popular Democracy, MoveOn, Public Citizen, the Sunrise Movement, the Economic Policy Institute and other left-wing groups sent a list of 400 names to the Biden transition team recently.
Bloomberg Government
November 23, 2020
“Those aren’t necessarily going to be teachers,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute who has written about public education job losses in the pandemic.
Politifact
November 23, 2020
“Senate Republicans allowed the across-the-board $600 increase in weekly unemployment benefits to expire at the end of July, so last week was the 16th week of unemployment in this pandemic for which recipients did not get the extra $600,” said Heidi Shierholz, policy director at the Economic Policy Institute, and a former top economist for the Obama-era Labor Department.
People’s World
November 23, 2020
Approaching unemployment through this lens is “super interesting,” said Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Examining the job market by looking at different buckets of people — like those who are unable to find a new job versus those struggling to earn above a poverty wage — can help policymakers develop approaches geared to each group.
CBS News
November 23, 2020
The pay levels of US chief executives have increased by an average of 940% since 1978, compared with a 12% increase in workers’ pay, according to the Economic Policy Institute thinktank.
The Guardian
November 23, 2020
Pandemic Response in European Countries Prioritize Children’s Education; Why Doesn’t the U.S.?
+ Elaine Weiss, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, astutely summed up school reopenings in the U.S.:
“We prioritized [opening] bars before giving resources to schools.”
Ms.
November 23, 2020