The Economic Policy Institute reported that in 1998—the year of the project—about 30 percent of the workforce worked for under $8 an hour, so from the start the odds were stacked against her.
The American Prospect
September 21, 2020
An August 2020 update from the Economic Policy Institute showed that unemployment among Ohio’s African Americans was roughly twice the overall rate for the first half of this year. Disparities in educational opportunities play a role, along with the economic consequences of a “school-to-prison pipeline.”
Energy News Network
September 21, 2020
In other news, we look at how the West Coast wildfires are affecting farmworkers; a strike at the Tate London; Heidi Shierholz of Economic Policy Institute on a legal defeat for a regressive Labor Department rule; and a nonprofit unionization streak, with Kayla Blado and Katie Barrows of the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union. With recommended reading on workplace safety in the midst of a pandemic, and why urban homesteaders are rebranding tenant farming.
Dissent Magazine
September 21, 2020
Elise Gould and Will Kimball, “‘Right-to-Work’ States Still Have Lower Wages” (Washington: Economic Policy Institute, 2015), available at https://www.epi.org/publication/right-to-work-states-have-lower-wages/
Center for American Progress
September 21, 2020
Ben Zipperer of the Economic Policy Institute (where I used to work) estimates that, without the first round of stimulus payments and beefed up jobless insurance, over 13 million people would have fallen below the poverty line.
“Unfortunately, the $600 supplementary unemployment insurance payment expired in July,” he writes in a blog.
“Senate Republicans blocking its renewal have increased poverty and hardship for millions of families in the middle of a pandemic that has caused widespread job loss and health devastation.”
Forbes
September 21, 2020
During his time in office, Trump has taken credit for the historically low unemployment rate for Black Americans, which hit 6.8% in early 2018. However, unemployment among white workers at the time was just 3.7%. Valerie Wilson, the director of the Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity and the economy, said that “even when we look at people with the same levels of education, we typically find that the Black unemployment rate is really close to, if not higher than, double the white unemployment rate.”
Marketplace
September 21, 2020
Economists said those ongoing cuts could impede a broader recovery, even as the private sector adds jobs. “State and local governments are hemorrhaging red ink, and it’s coast to coast, it’s politically ecumenical. Every state and municipality is struggling and responding by slashing payrolls,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, who spoke in late August at an Economic Policy Institute panel discussion. “There’s no more effective way to help the economy and to help these states and support these jobs than providing federal government aid to state and local governments.”
SHRM
September 21, 2020
Even during the economic recovery of recent years, minority groups were lagging behind, says [Valerie Wilson, director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy] Economic Policy Institute. “There were significant racial disparities in wages, significant racial disparities in unemployment, significant racial disparities in the kinds of jobs people held.”
Black, Latino and Native American workers were more likely to have jobs that were lost during the pandemic, Wilson says. A Harvard University analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Pulse Survey, released in July, found that 58% of Latino and 53% of Black households experienced loss in earnings early in the pandemic. Wilson’s own research has shown that Latino workers have been particularly affected by job losses during the pandemic.
Daily Kos
September 21, 2020
President Trump showing signs of compromise with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi? If so, that’s a good thing. Another 860,000 Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week. It was “the 26th week in a row total initial claims were far greater than the worst week of the Great Recession,” pointed out Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute.
Newsweek
September 21, 2020