Wage theft is a big-time crime in which billions of dollars are taken out of working people’s pockets every year. Rather than armed thugs or slick pickpockets committing the crime, it’s employers who fail to pay the wages and benefits their employees are guaranteed by law.
In the 10 most populous states, 2.4 million workers lose $8 billion to the crime every year, according to a 2017 study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Yahoo Finance
October 7, 2020
But even before the COVID-19 crisis, many Americans were dealing with economic issues. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the federal minimum wage hasn’t been enough to meet cost of living demands since the 1960s. This is just one factor contributing to widening economic inequality. This term refers to either gaps in income or wealth between America’s richest and the rest of the country, and both continue to grow year after year.
Chicago Tribune
October 7, 2020
Domestic workers are overwhelmingly women, the majority women of color. They’re paid lower than average wages and most get no sick time, unemployment, health insurance or the right to organize, said Julia Wolfe with the Economic Policy Institute.
“It’s really difficult to think of a more vulnerable workforce,” she said.
Marketplace
October 7, 2020
“We still have a massive gap in the labor market, and job growth is slowing,” said Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute and a former chief economist at the Department of Labor during the Obama administration.
The unemployment rate fell to 7.9% in September after businesses added 661,000 jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. That rate is down from a 14.7% peak in April, the highest recorded since the Great Depression.
There are 10.7 million fewer jobs now than in February before the pandemic-induced recession, according to the Bureau. The true figure likely exceeds 12 million jobs when factoring in prevailing monthly job-growth trends that had been occurring pre-pandemic, Shierholz said.
CNBC
October 7, 2020
The region’s cost of living presents a challenge. A single Ulster County resident must earn $48,036 annually to adequately pay bills, while a family with two adults and two children needs $109,754, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit research group.
Times Herald-Record
October 7, 2020
Yahoo Finance’s Kristin Myers and Josh Bivens, Economic Policy Institute Research Director, discuss the economic impact of cutting back the $600 boost in unemployment insurance.
Yahoo Finance
October 7, 2020
I want to bring in Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. It is great to have you, talk to us about how you are looking at permanent unemployment.
Bloomberg TV
October 6, 2020
The U.S. economy is still gaining jobs, but at a pace that has been slowing over the last 3 months. The Labor Department reports nonfarm payrolls increased by 661,000 jobs in September. Millions of people are out of work due to the financial carnage of this pandemic, some of those jobs have been lost permanently. Elise Gould, senior economist with the think tank Economic Policy Institute, highlighted some of the main areas of concern. “I think the public sector is particularly concerning to me. We saw many jobs lost in public sector, particularly in state and local governments, with a significant uptick in long-term unemployment those that are unemployed for 27 week and that is concerning particularly after the recession drags on and more and more workers are unemployed for longer periods of time.
NPR
October 6, 2020
The sluggish inefficiency has left many people relying solely on state unemployment benefits ever since the $600 federal unemployment benefit expired in July. “That means most people on UI are now are forced to get by on the meager benefits that are in place without the extra payment, benefits which are typically around 40% of their pre-virus earnings,” writes Heidi Shierholz at the Economic Policy Institute. “It goes without saying that most folks can’t exist on 40% of prior earnings without experiencing a sharp drop in living standards and enormous pain.”
Jacobin
October 6, 2020