Under the Trump administration, the Black unemployment rate steadily improved, dropping to 5.4 percent at its bottom in August 2019, compared to 7.5 percent when Trump took office in January 2017. But that achievement is attributable to economic growth that was already revving when Trump took office, economists say.
“Basically, we saw a continuation of the steady growth of the economy that we saw in the years prior to this administration,” said Elise Gould of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Under the Trump administration, she said, Black workers did not see employment levels ever go “above the trend.”
Gould added that when the labor market is tight, like it was in first three years of the Trump administration, discrimination tends to decline. “Oftentimes, the gains to a growing economy are not accrued to those most historically disadvantaged,” Gould said, “until you get to a much tighter labor market, and that is the natural consequence of workers becoming more scarce and employers having less discretion to discriminate. “
Even with record-low unemployment rates in 2019, Black Americans still had fewer jobs than their white counterparts — even for those with college or advanced degrees — according to research by EPI.
Politico
November 2, 2020
Open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act kicks off today. The uninsured have from today to December 15th to sign up for the insurance plan or get coverage through the health care exchange. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that at least 12 million workers and their families lost their employee sponsored insurance because of the pandemic.
WUSA 9
November 2, 2020
Experts attribute the divide to a “double wage gap” whereby Latinas are subjected to both gender and ethnic bias, crippling upward mobility and limiting earnings to an average of 55 cents on the dollar compared to white men. According to the Economic Policy Institute, while the types of occupation and lack of education remain critical factors, even when accounting for those factors, in addition to experience and location, Latinas are still vastly underpaid compared to their white male colleagues across professions.
AOL
November 2, 2020
Analysts who sling data for a living have poked holes in Trump’s economist populist claims by other means. Two recently published reports by the D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute reveal that middle and working class Americans – including those living in regions of the country that swung for Trump in 2016 – saw slower wage and income growth under his presidency than they did in the years leading up to it, even before the COVID pandemic arrived on U.S. shores.
Capital and Main
November 2, 2020
Under his watch, wage growth actually slowed in most of the places he has visited or will touch down in between October 30 and November 2. On average, residents in 11 of the 16 counties on Trump’s final campaign tour saw slower annual real wage growth during the first three years of the Trump administration when compared to the last three years of the Obama Administration, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute and shared with Capital & Main.
Capital and Main
November 2, 2020
Organizations like the Economic Policy Institute estimate that an outright repeal of the Affordable Care Act could cause upward of 20 million people to lose their health insurance. Apart from what that means for personal health outcomes, the group projects that fewer people with insurance will lead to less visits to primary care physicians and other health care facilities, hurting providers’ bottom lines while exacerbating the public health crisis.
Courthouse News
November 2, 2020
The numbers show this: The Economic Policy Institute calculated that 1,800 factories had closed between 2016 and 2018, and the net loss in manufacturing plants—and jobs—continues, hastened recently by the pandemic. Foreign subsidiaries of U.S. manufacturers increased employment by 257,400 jobs in 2017 and 2018, while stateside workers struggled.
The American Prospect
November 2, 2020
Lonnie Golden, “Still falling short on hours and pay” (Washington: Economic Policy Institute, 2016)
Center for American Progress
November 2, 2020
San Francisco’s pending “Proposition L” takes aim on the locomotive driving contemporary American inequality: our major corporations and banks. The executives who run these enterprises make fabulously more than workers — and fabulously more than executives used to make. CEO compensation, the Economic Policy Institute reported this past August, has increased 1,167 percent since 1978, after taking inflation into account. Worker pay? Up just 13.7 percent.
In 1978, CEOs pocketed 31 times what typical workers earned. Last year, top execs averaged 309 times more.
Inequality.org
November 2, 2020
Measured against the state’s median family income of $68,034, that family spends roughly 41% of its annual income on child care alone — almost six times the Department of Health’s recommended benchmark.
Ascent drew its ranking from 2019 data from the Economic Policy Institute.
A more recent release of 2020 data from the same source examined the average cost of infant care in California, pricing it at $16,945 a year.
That’s slightly more than the statewide average annual cost of housing, $16,693, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
In short, child care for a baby costs more per year than the average Californian will pay for rent.
San Luis Obispo Tribune
November 2, 2020