Bivens, J and B Zipperer (2020), Health Insurance and the COVID-19 Shock, Economic Policy Institute Report.
VoxEU
November 4, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute found that one in five Black adults couldn’t see a healthcare provider when they needed to because of costs. Black people are twice as likely to be uninsured as white Americans.
Inside Philanthropy
November 3, 2020
The Republican dominated executive, legislative and judicial branches have conspired to rig the laws, rules and regulations governing our political economy against unions and for corporations. The Brookings Institute maintains an up-to-date compilation of the Trump administration’s deregulatory actions in a number of areas including labor, health, covid-19, education and environment. The Economic Policy Institute has itemized 50 anti-union actions taken by these branches of government against workers and provided an even more detailed analysis in another article. Here are some of the highlights.
AlterNet
November 3, 2020
Telegraph UK
November 3, 2020
Real wage growth was also higher under Obama-Biden. Middle-class incomes grew about 5.8% per year during their last two years in office, but slowed to 2.7% in Trump’s first two years, an Economic Policy Institute and Capital & Main analysis of U.S. Census data found.
New Jersey Star-Ledger
November 3, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute predicts 29.8 million people nationwide will lose their health insurance if the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is repealed and another 1.2 million jobs will be lost. Hawaii’s number of uninsured people would jump by 99% and 4,299 jobs would be lost, or 7 out of every 1,000. That would increase the unemployment rate by .7%.
State of Reform
November 3, 2020
Interview with Robert Scott.
Al Jazeera
November 3, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute has published a handy list describing fifty ways the Trump administration has hurt workers.
DOL-related highlights include:
- Refusal to issue COVID-19 workplace safety guidelines, and generally not enforcing the Occupational Safety and Health Act during the pandemic;
- Allowing states to deny unemployment insurance benefits to workers who refuse to return to unsafe jobs due to COVID-19 concerns;
- Giving employers more ways to avoid paying workers overtime;
- Allowing employers to avoid basic labor protections by misclassifying employees as “independent contractors”;
- Letting large corporations off the hook for their franchisees’ labor law violations by refusing to consider them to be “joint employers”;
- Allowing employers to lower tipped workers’ pay, and trying to allow employers to steal workers’ tips;
- Relaxing employers’ responsibility to track workplace injuries and illnesses.
Jacobin
November 3, 2020