Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told Newsweek she believes a form of student loan cancellation would be beneficial, particularly amid the widespread economic fallout of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think it’s gonna be hugely beneficial to those who have taken on a lot of debt. I’m particularly concerned with those borrowers who didn’t necessarily finish college and are racked with debt that is making their economic lives particularly difficult,” Gould said. The economist pointed out that the burden of debt for a particular individual depends a lot on how much they’ve borrowed and how much their annual income is. She suggested it may be better to find a policy that “balances” these factors instead of blanket loan forgiveness.
Newsweek
November 19, 2020
Under a Joe Biden administration, frontline workers and women – many of them people of color – hope to see the federal minimum wage raised. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias looks at the pros and cons.
Features interview with Ben Zipperer.
Voice of America
November 19, 2020
New unemployment claims may be declining, but the U.S. economy is still facing a huge jobs shortfall since the number of openings is down 10 million from where it was in February, according to recent data from the Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC
November 19, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute, a progressive research firm, studied black unemployment during the pandemic. There are three main groups of workers in the COVID-19 economy, said a report from Elise Gould, a senior economist, and Valerie Wilson, director of the institute’s program on race, ethnicity and the economy.
One group of people has lost their jobs and faces economic insecurity. Another involve people classified as essential workers and face health insecurity as a result. The third can continue working from the safety of their homes.
“Unfortunately, black workers are less likely to be found in the last group,” the researchers found.
Sacramento Bee
November 19, 2020
If nothing changes, more than 13 million people are at risk of seeing their benefits end, potentially leaving them with less money to pay the rent, buy groceries or cover other bills.
‘The bottom line is that many workers will see a massive drop in living standards and increases in poverty,’ said Heidi Shierholz, director of policy for the Economic Policy Institute.
Daily Mail
November 19, 2020
Up to 12 million Americans have lost their job-based health insurance, the Economic Policy Institute found.
The Guardian
November 19, 2020
Tampoco lo cree la organización Farmworker Justice, quien calificó la medida como ‘cruel’. En tanto, el director de investigación de políticas y leyes de inmigración del Instituto de Política Económica, Daniel Costa dijo: “Esto es absolutamente un recorte salarial para los migrantes que son trabajadores agrícolas H-2A”.
Univision
November 18, 2020
These changes have been criticized by a number of advocacy organizations. “This is absolutely a wage cut for migrants who are H-2A farmworkers,” Daniel Costa, the director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute said. “H-2A farmworkers will not benefit from any natural wage growth that occurs for three years—during what farm owners are saying is a severe labor shortage, which is exactly when you would expect wages to grow in a free market.”
Food & Wine
November 18, 2020
Similarly, the CBO study found a $15 minimum wage would could also mean an increase in pay for 10 million people who already earn slightly more than this hourly wage. David Cooper, senior economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, noted that raising the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would lift the pay of 40 million workers and help some people make enough to get out of poverty.
Business Insider
November 18, 2020
Even before the pandemic, schools were facing shortages in both teachers and substitutes in some states. The pandemic has made it even harder to fill substitute vacancies in places like Indiana and Colorado. Additionally, one analysis out of the Economic Policy Institute found the US hasn’t been employing enough people in schools to keep up with enrollment since after the Great Recession.
“As of September 2019, the start of the most recent pre-pandemic school year, local public education jobs were still 60,000 short of their September 2008 level, and they were over 300,000 lower than they would have needed to be to keep up with public school enrollment,” Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute wrote in the blog post.
Business Insider
November 18, 2020