“Prop 22 showed that companies and big corporations can buy their way out of providing protections for workers under the law,” said Margaret Poydock, a policy associate for the Economic Policy Institute, a pro-labor think tank.
The Washington Post
November 23, 2020
Thea Lee, the president of the Economic Policy Institute, said Yellen’s work on unemployment as chair of the Federal Reserve helped “tilt the balance of priorities at the Fed” away from just controlling inflation.
“[Brainard and Yellen] have been through the political ringer a lot,” Lee said. “They both have a good shot at confirmation.”
Government Executive
November 23, 2020
Economists say other relief policies have proved more effective at boosting the economy. For instance, an extra $600 in weekly unemployment pay helped bolster households that had suffered job or income losses — until it expired in July. In May alone, the program boosted personal income by $842 billion, according to the Economic Policy Institute. That money helped support local businesses, keeping the economy from collapsing under the impact of lockdowns.
CBS News
November 23, 2020
When I read Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute about the grimness of December for those on claims who are losing their benefits tell us about what’s coming in December. Well, it’s an unappreciated aspect of all this, most of what the CARES Act produced is going to expire on December 31st, including that extra emergency 13 weeks that I was just talking about. The pandemic emergencies goes away December 31st, also the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance which has 8 million people on it now that’s for gig workers and the self-employed that goes away on December 31st.
Bloomberg Radio
November 20, 2020
Heidi Shierholz, a former chief economist at the Labor Department and senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute, said it could take over a year for the agencies to finalize rules and regulations around gig work. And the lawsuits against gig companies could take even longer, especially if they go to the Supreme Court.
Protocol
November 20, 2020
But one of the bleakest aspects of pandemic hazard pay is that it was never actually particularly widespread to begin with. A survey conducted by the Economic Policy Institute in June found that only about 30 percent of people working outside of their homes during the pandemic had received hazard pay increases, and that number is almost certainly lower now that most of the businesses that previously adopted hazard pay have ended the practice.
New Republic
November 20, 2020
Recent studies out of the Economic Policy Institute and McKinsey and Company, nonpartisan think tanks, cite the negative impact of reduced and remote learning for children and their futures. Data shows reduced learning time has likely impeded both the amount and quality of learning time with all students, but with a significant impact noted for low-income, Black and Hispanic students. A loss of learning leads to a loss in future earnings and this loss is projected to have a long-term impact, which includes increased dropout rates, decreased educational engagement and a loss of future earnings impacting an already stressed economy.
Chicago Tribune
November 20, 2020
Janine Jackson interviewed the Economic Policy Institute’s Josh Bivens about pandemic unemployment for the November 13, 2020, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
FAIR
November 20, 2020
The main concern with raising the minimum wage is that business owners will not be prepared to properly pay their workers. But the minimum wage has been $7.25 for a decade, and in 2019, the Economic Policy Institute estimated that only about 5% of the US workforce was earning less than $9 an hour.
The Daily Utah Chronicle
November 20, 2020
The United States’ five largest poultry processing states — Georgia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi — are all in the South. The region’s poultry industry, which is a dominant source of jobs in many rural communities, has historically relied on the labor of Black people, poor white women, and, more recently, immigrants, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute.
Facing South
November 20, 2020