“The expiration of vital pandemic unemployment insurance (UI) benefits on December 26 will leave 12 million workers without a safety net, and over four million others will have already exhausted their benefits by this cutoff,” Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote in a blog post last week. “This spells trouble not only for workers and their families who are desperately trying to keep a roof over their heads and put food on the table—especially with the eviction moratorium also set to expire on December 31—but also for the recovery itself.”
Common Dreams
December 9, 2020
During the last economic expansion, from 2009 to 2019, average yearly wages for the bottom 90% of workers rose 8.7% after adjusting for inflation, according to an analysis of Social Security Administration data by the liberal Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Meanwhile, pay for most of the top 10% rose 13.2% – while earnings for the top 1% jumped 20.4%.
“It’s a clear story of disempowerment of workers,” said Lawrence Mishel, co-author of the study and a distinguished fellow at EPI.
USA Today
December 9, 2020
For the first time since 1948, female unemployment rates have reached double digits, reported WBUR-FM, an affiliate of NPR. In April, 18 percent of Wisconsin women were unemployed, double the rate of men, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. Black and Latinx women are also in an economically more precarious and worse position than are white and Asian women, based on research from the Economic Policy Institute.
Daily Cardinal
December 9, 2020
According to research from the Economic Policy Institute, in 2019, public school teachers earned nearly 20% less in weekly wages than other college-educated workers.
Yahoo Finance
December 9, 2020
An examination of federal data by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows that income rose for the top 1 percent of earners by 160 percent between 1979 and 2019, compared to only 26 percent for those in the bottom 90 percent of wage earners. Both groups, however, were dwarfed by those in the top 0.1 percent of incomes, who saw their wages skyrocket by 345.2 percent during the same time.
Teamsters
December 9, 2020
Infrastructure investment is not only a smart move politically. Recent research by the Economic Policy Institute found up to 12.9 million new jobs could be created by investing in infrastructure and clean energy and rebalancing trade. Enhancing Buy America policies will only enhance those estimates.
Alliance for American Manufacturing
December 9, 2020
A recent report from the Economic Policy Institute found that reinstating the expired $600 weekly jobless benefit could save or create 3.3 million jobs and boost personal income by more than $290 billion over the next year.
CNBC
December 9, 2020