Heather Boushey, the president and CEO of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, also has a long history in the Beltway. She’s worked with and testified in front of Congress as an economist for the Center for American Progress, the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee, the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and the Economic Policy Institute. In 2016, it was announced that she would take the role of chief economist on the Clinton-Kaine transition team had Clinton won, and she served as an economic counselor to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
Fortune
December 7, 2020
Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, warned that with key federal unemployment programs set to expire at the end of December and coronavirus infections on the rise nationwide, “millions of workers and their families are in for an even harsher winter” unless Congress takes decisive action.
“The unemployment rate edged down to 6.7%, but for the ‘wrong’ reasons as 400,000 people left the labor force,” Gould noted in an analysis of the new figures. “The number of workers unemployed 27 weeks or more—the long-term unemployed—shot up to 3.9 million in November. Now, over one-third (36.9%) of the total unemployed are long-term unemployed.”
Common Dreams
December 7, 2020
Ackman homes in on the exacerbating growth of U.S. wage inequality. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reports that between 1979 and 2019, the top 1 percent of earners enjoyed 160 percent income growth, while the bottom 90 percent of earners saw stagnating wages that rose only 26 percent of the same 40 year period. “In every period since 1979, wages for the bottom 90% were continuously redistributed upward to the top 10% and frequently to the very highest 1.0% and 0.1%,” it concluded.
Forbes
December 7, 2020
A continued concern for restaurant workers is that many do not have insurance through their employers, and those who contract COVID-19 may not be covered. A 2014 study by the Economic Policy Institute found that 14.4% of restaurant workers were covered.
Dallas Morning News
December 7, 2020
Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous and Sibile Marcellus discuss EPI’s latest report.
Yahoo Finance
December 7, 2020
Economic disparities are overwhelmingly disproportionate for Black Americans. At the height of the pandemic, the unemployment rate spiked for African Americans more than any other racial group, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In 2018, the overall income for Black Americans was about 42% lower than white Americans, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
ABC News
December 7, 2020
Geographically, the largest increases in Hispanic unemployment during the same period were in Massachusetts (-26%), Nevada (-25.5%), and New Jersey (-18%). States where Hispanic employment was among the least affected, according to the Economic Policy Institute, include New Mexico (-4.6%), Utah (-6%), Texas (-9.3%), and Georgia (-9.1%).
CNBC
December 7, 2020
And that’s just the federal share of taxes. To find the total tax burden on the top 1%, GOBankingRates analyzed 2019 data from the Tax Foundation on federal and state income tax rates for single filers and married couples filing jointly. The average annual income of the top 1% was sourced from the Economic Policy Institute. GOBankingRates then calculated both the effective and marginal tax rates on the top 1% in every state using an in-house calculator. The study also found how much the top 1% spends on sales taxes by looking at information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center. Property tax was excluded due to the lack of consistent data for home values of the top 1% in every state.
GO Banking Rates
December 7, 2020
Close to one in four workers between the ages of 16 and 24 is unemployed, according to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute. There is hope for young workers like Risse, but avoiding a career derailment and a lost generation will require young job-seekers and employers alike to focus more on connection.
Fortune
December 7, 2020
If the emergency pandemic programs were to be reinstated, the economy “would be boosted by 3.5 percent, and 5.1 million more jobs would be added in 2021,” said Economic Policy Institute Senior Economist Elise Gould and Director of Research Josh Bivens, in a report released Wednesday.
“If the effective safety net functions provided by these programs were maintained through 2021, millions of workers would be better able to avoid economic catastrophe while out of work due to the pandemic,” they concluded.
NBC News
December 7, 2020