“Senate Republicans allowed the across-the-board $600 increase in weekly unemployment benefits to expire at the end of July, so last week was the 16th week of unemployment in this pandemic for which recipients did not get the extra $600,” said Heidi Shierholz, policy director at the Economic Policy Institute, and a former top economist for the Obama-era Labor Department.
People’s World
November 23, 2020
Approaching unemployment through this lens is “super interesting,” said Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Examining the job market by looking at different buckets of people — like those who are unable to find a new job versus those struggling to earn above a poverty wage — can help policymakers develop approaches geared to each group.
CBS News
November 23, 2020
The pay levels of US chief executives have increased by an average of 940% since 1978, compared with a 12% increase in workers’ pay, according to the Economic Policy Institute thinktank.
The Guardian
November 23, 2020
Pandemic Response in European Countries Prioritize Children’s Education; Why Doesn’t the U.S.?
+ Elaine Weiss, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, astutely summed up school reopenings in the U.S.:
“We prioritized [opening] bars before giving resources to schools.”
Ms.
November 23, 2020
The Rhode Island Council on Elementary and Secondary Education may soon vote for a dramatic expansion of charter schools. This would be a serious mistake. As charter schools expand, they impose dramatic net costs on school districts. The council should carefully consider those costs, particularly for a resource-strapped urban district such as Providence, before approving an ill-advised charter school expansion.
The Providence Journal
November 23, 2020
Jobless claims in context
Essential context: As the Economic Policy Institute’s Heidi Shierholz explains,
Ad Age
November 23, 2020
Institutional barriers and discrimination: According to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, younger workers as well as Black and Hispanic individuals face higher underemployment rates. Others may cut back on their working hours to care for children. A Bankrate survey from August found that 22 percent of parents would have to cut back their hours if their child’s school adopted fully remote learning.
Bankrate
November 23, 2020
When the coronavirus pandemic started spreading across the country in the spring, nearly a quarter of all young workers — defined as ages 16 to 24 — lost their jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute. One in four young people just starting out in the workforce had their futures put on hold indefinitely. And they’re not alone: Axios in October reported that the “true unemployment rate” for Americans of all ages is over 26%.
Business Insider
November 23, 2020
Those deferrals add up. In 2014, the Joint Committee on Taxation projected the revenue loss from deferrals at $83.5 billion, and the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute estimated in 2017 that deferred taxes on offshore profits will cost the U.S. $1.3 trillion over the next decade, or about $126 billion a year.
Salon
November 23, 2020
24/7 Wall St. used data from the Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator to identify the most expensive place in every state. We ranked counties based on the estimated monthly cost for a single adult to maintain a modest yet adequate standard of living.
24/7 Wall St.
November 23, 2020