The approach that Price and Edwards took marks a breakthrough. The Economic Policy Institute has created a tool that shows that had U.S. workers’ wages over the past three decades kept up with increases in productivity, as they did in the three decades following World War II, someone making around $50,000 today would instead be making more than $70,000. But until now, nobody has teased out the bottom-line effects to individuals and their families of how economic growth is being shared across the income spectrum, thereby turning what can be an abstract concept into something much more tangible.
Fast Company
September 14, 2020
“All of this confusion just makes for more administrative burdens at a time when people are going longer without benefits, living standards are declining and poverty is rising after millions lost their jobs through no fault of their own from the pandemic,” says Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
USA Today
September 14, 2020
“The same children whose educations were most disrupted and learning interrupted from March to June are now least likely to have the face-to-face interactions and personalized supports they need to regain lost ground,” said economist Emma García, who co-authored a report released last week on COVID-19 related inequities for the Economic Policy Institute, based in Washington, D.C.
LA Times
September 14, 2020
“He hasn’t really taken any steps to make any of the real fixes” to the H-1B program, Economic Policy Institute’s Daniel Costa said. “A lot of it has been somewhat symbolic.”
Axios
September 14, 2020
Stop pretending Black midwesterners don’t exist and it’s not just the white working class that is suffering, it is the working class, period. We can’t solve the problem if we refuse to see who those workers actually are. By 2032, according to the Economic Policy Institute, the American working class will be made up mostly of people of color, including Black workers.
MSNBC AM Joy
September 14, 2020
Economic inequality plagues Black families. A June 2020 report from the Economic Policy Institute determined the average hourly wage of a working Black male in America in 2019 was a little more than $20, or 71% of the average wage of a working white male, at $29. The salary of Black women was even lower: the average wage of a working Black female, about $18, was 83% of the average wage of a working white female, who made an average $22.
Cronkite News
September 14, 2020
Here’s Heidi Shierholz at the liberal Economic Policy Institute demolishing the Republicans’ assertion:
Rigorous empirical studies show that any theoretical work disincentive effect of the $600 was so minor that it cannot even be detected. For example, a study by Yale economists found no evidence that recipients of more generous benefits were less likely to return to work, which is what we would expect to see if the extra payments really were a disincentive to work. And a case in point: in May/June/July—with the $600 in place—9.2 million people went back to work, and a large share of likely UI recipients who returned to work were making more on UI than their prior wage. The extra benefits did not stop them from going back. A job offer is too important at a time like this to be traded for a temporary increase in benefits, and when commentators ignore that, they are ignoring the realities of the lives of working people. Further, there are 8.5 million more unemployed workers than job openings, meaning millions will remain jobless no matter what they do. Dropping the $600 cannot incentivize people to get jobs that are not there. […]
Dropping the $600 is also exacerbating racial inequality. Due to the impact of historic and current systemic racism, Black and brown communities have seen more job loss in this recession, and have less wealth to fall back on. They are taking a much bigger hit with the expiration of the $600.
Daily Kos
September 14, 2020
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, last month, the Black unemployment rate was 13 percent, nearly twice the white unemployment rate of 7.3 percent. The racial wage gap is 26.5 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The Sentencing Project notes that the Black incarceration rate is five times the white incarceration rate. Therefore, we can safely assume these economic and social disparities are not due to race but because Black people are lazy, uneducated criminals who don’t want to work.
The Root
September 14, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute disputes the rose-tinted hue that Trump and the White House are giving the unemployment figures.
It noted that the 13.6 million people officially unemployed in August, did not take into account an extra 1.1 million workers who were temporarily unemployed but misclassified as “employed but not at work.”
In addition, there were 4.3 million people out of work because of the virus but who were not counted because they were not actively seeking a job.
This, the EPI says, puts the number of people either officially unemployed or out of work because of COVID-19 closer to 19 million, meaning an unemployment rate of 11.3 percent.
Bearing the brunt of the job losses were women, Latino workers, and low wage sectors of the economy, notably leisure and hospitality.
“Another group that hasn’t got a lot of attention are younger workers,” EPI senior economist Elise Gould told Newsweek.
Newsweek
September 14, 2020