That idea is emblematic of Biden’s approach. He has also championed a $775 billion program underwriting the cost of childcare and eldercare for American families and backs a $2 trillion infrastructure plan that would overhaul U.S. roads, bridges, trains and broadband systems while creating millions of jobs. The Biden Administration is also expected to push Congress to extend the $600 in expanded unemployment that expired at the end of July and to back an influx of federal cash to state and local governments, which have been forced by the economic collapse to slash programs benefiting American families, experts say. Colorado, for example, has increased Medicaid co-pays; California reduced firefighter pay by 7.5%; and Georgia slashed K-12 public school budgets by nearly $1 billion. Data suggests that Congress’s failure in 2008 to sufficiently bolster state governments delayed the economic recovery by four years, says Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute and a former Labor Department economist.
Time
November 12, 2020
Bloomberg News: Bidenomics: What the president-elect could mean for business and the economy. “One of the things Democrats have learned is that unless there is real change, that working people really do feel a difference, we would be setting the stage for another Trump. A different Trump, but another Trump,” says Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. “It is really important that economic growth is more broadly shared, so it doesn’t just go to the top 1 percent.”
The Hill
November 12, 2020
Hip Latina
November 12, 2020
Rhinehart is a senior fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, where she landed after leaving the AFL-CIO in 2018 after more than two decades as an attorney for the labor federation. She started there as an associate attorney in 1996 and worked her way up to the general counsel position by 2009.
Law360
November 12, 2020
Economic Policy Institute (EPI) research suggests that realigning the dollar could create 3.5 million to 6.6 million new, good-paying U.S. jobs over the next four years. It’s why currency matters far more than tariffs, particularly when Trump’s Section 301 China tariffs merely shifted the global export picture. Yes, America’s goods deficit with China dropped $30 billion between 2017 and 2019. But total U.S. imports actually continued to grow.
The Hill
November 12, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimates around 30 million workers in the U.S. have lost hours, jobs, or seen their wages cut because of the pandemic.
Mundo Obrero Workers World
November 12, 2020
Data from Oxfam America and the Economic Policy Institute suggests that strongly advocating for a living wage, which researchers have pointed out would substantially reduce racial inequality, could propel a high turnout among working class populations that are electorally significant but often underrepresented at the polls.
Common Dreams
November 12, 2020
The help provided by the government’s initial $2.2 trillion stimulus package is long gone, and the Republican-controlled Senate has consistently failed to produce another relief effort. Meanwhile, at least 6.2 million people lost their employer-sponsored health insurance via the pandemic, according to the Economic Policy Institute, and millions more did not have company health plans to begin with.
Capital and Main
November 12, 2020
Historically speaking, young workers have always faced major disadvantages when launching their careers during weaker economies, but according to the Economic Policy Institute, “they have been even more negatively affected by the current recession.”
The New Yorker
November 12, 2020
• Lily Garcia, former head of the National Education Association whose mother is from Panama. She serves on the president’s advisory commission on educational excellence for Hispanics and is a board member of the Economic Policy Institute.
USA Today
November 12, 2020