“When things shut down, there was a lot of delusion” that employment would soon return to normal, said Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, a former Labor Department chief economist. “Now, people are realizing that in industries where there’s a lot of social contact, many of those [jobs] are just not coming back” until well after there’s a vaccine.
Politico
October 23, 2020
According to the Economic Policy Institute, about 16% of all veterans—1.2 million men and women–are covered by a union contracts (compared to 10.3% of all workers). They are most heavily represented in the American Federation of Government Employees and American Postal Workers, where veterans have a strong collective identity and internal union presence. On an individual basis, union members who are veterans may also belong to local posts of the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, or AMVETS. But these old-line groups tend to be conservative on military and foreign policy issues and not much engaged with issues affecting veterans as workers. Common Defense, in contrast, proclaims its commitment to “progressive values” and seeks partnerships with like-minded unions working for social and economic justice.
Counterpunch
October 23, 2020
We are also discussing Republican’s efforts to block the passage of more than a $1.8 trillion stimulus package. According to the Economic Policy Institute, over 13 million more people would be in poverty without unemployment insurance and stimulus payments.
KALW San Francisco
October 23, 2020
According to Zurofsky, Rewiring America’s new report—which echoes a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute confirming that investments in energy efficiency and clean energy would create millions of jobs—is meant to demonstrate “what the future can look like if we are motivated to make it so.”
Common Dreams
October 23, 2020
Trade activists on the left have thrown out several names for Biden to consider, including Thea Lee, president of the Economic Policy Institute; Mike Wessel, a commissioner on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission; Kim Glas, president of the National Council of Textile Organizations; Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, and Beth Baltzan, a trade lawyer who has worked for both USTR and House Ways and Means.
Politico
October 23, 2020
In my own journey to understanding the disparity in homeownership rates and home values, I read “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America,” by Richard Rothstein, a distinguished fellow at the Economic Policy Institute. Rothstein traces the roots of real estate discrimination, arguing that for too long we’ve shifted the blame to Blacks rather than own up to the federal government’s significant role in creating a “caste system” that has denied families of color the opportunity to build wealth. Government policy specifically told developers of suburban neighborhoods they could not sell homes to Blacks.
Washington Post
October 23, 2020
Economic inequality in the U.S. is “real and deeply damaging to the living standards of the vast majority of families,” Josh Bevins of the Economic Policy Institute wrote in a September opinion piece in USA TODAY.
USA Today
October 23, 2020
Los Angeles County is not alone. Research from Algernon Austin, former director of the program on race, ethnicity, and the economy at the Economic Policy Institute, shows that public employment is a crucial path to good jobs in Massachusetts.14 In just one of his many pieces on the importance of public jobs for Black workers, published by Demos, he shows that Black workers double their odds of attaining a good job or owning a home if they work in the public sector. The homeownership gap narrows to insignificant after controlling for an exhaustive list of socioeconomic confounding factors for Black workers, though it persists for other racial and ethnic minorities.
Center for American Progress
October 23, 2020
“It’s absolutely true the job market and economy are strengthening,” said Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at think tank the Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist at the Labor Department during the Obama administration.
CNBC
October 23, 2020