Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, warned that at this pace, it could take years for the economy to return to pre-pandemic levels.
“Unfortunately, the labor market distress is long from over,” she wrote. “The pandemic continues to spread, including into the White House, and may worsen in the winter months along with increasing numbers of evictions. Further, recent reports of impending layoffs…suggest even more trouble on the horizon.”
Courthouse News Service
October 6, 2020
Total non-farm payrolls rose by 661,000 in September and the unemployment rate fell by about a half a percentage point to 7.9%. This improvement was weaker compared to prior months—in June the economy added 4.8 million jobs, in August 1.5 million.
“At this pace of slowing job growth, it will take years to return to the pre-pandemic labor market,” Elise Gould, senior economist at the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute, warned in an analysis.
Gould pointed out that the economy is still down 10.7 million jobs from where it was in February, the month before the pandemic hit the U.S. in full force, and that long-term unemployment, where people are out of work for 27 weeks or more, is on the rise.
Route Fifty
October 6, 2020
Overall, the report shows that the boon of jobs seen throughout the summer may be fading. In response to the BLS data, the Economic Policy Institute reported that at its current pace, the U.S. economy will take years to return to the pre-pandemic labor market. The EPI also pointed out that there are still significant racial disparities: The unemployment rates for Black (12.1%) and Hispanic workers (10.3%) are still far higher than white workers (7%).
Mic
October 6, 2020
Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute predicts that the slowdown shown in the latest jobs report means full recovery could be years away.
Daily Kos
October 6, 2020
How bad is it? Since 1978, worker compensation has risen just 12 percent, while CEO compensation has risen 940 percent. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the ratio of CEO to worker pay increased from 30 to 1 in 1978 to 320 to 1 today. We’re approaching a tipping point, which may be closer than you think. No system can long endure that doesn’t serve its people and provide for its workers.
The American Prospect
October 6, 2020
The week of Nov. 10, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case brought by Republicans seeking to overturn Obamacare. Trump’s nominee to replace Justice Ginsberg is projected to support overturning the law. The Economic Policy Institute reports the potential impact of overturning Obamacare: “Across the country, 29.8 million people would lose their health insurance if the Affordable Care Act were repealed – more than doubling the number of people without health insurance. And 1.2 million jobs would be lost – not just in healthcare, but across the board.”
San Francisco Bay View
October 6, 2020
“We just cannot get out of this—the hole that we’re in,” senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute Heidi Shierholz told The Inquirer, “in any reasonable way, without doing huge scarring, without a much stronger care infrastructure.” Happy days!
Jezebel
October 6, 2020
The national minimum wage was created in 1938 as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which set the rate at 25 cents an hour. It has risen in fits and starts in the decades since, but it has not kept pace with the country’s cost of living. According to a 2019 analysis done by the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank, after adjusting for inflation, the minimum wage reached its peak value in 1968. Today, the minimum wage is worth 31 percent less than it was in 1968 and 17 percent less than it was even as recently as 2009, the last time the national rate was increased, to $7.25 an hour.
Sarasota Magazine
October 6, 2020
Among the largest 350 companies in the country, the average CEO compensation was about $14 million in 2018. That’s an over 29% increase from executive pay in 2009. That’s according to the Economic Policy Institute. That’s not bad at all. But CEO compensation is a confusing mix of all of this stuff, so let’s unpack the many different ways that the big wigs in this country get paid.
Yahoo Finance
October 6, 2020
Though redlining is no longer government policy, its consequences are still with us. According to the Economic Policy Institute, just 13 percent of white students attend a school that has a majority of Black students, while nearly 70 percent of Black students do. Black wealth trails badly behind white wealth; the former is more likely to live in an area with lower home values and, because of disparities in income, many Black Americans have not been able to build up enough wealth to buy a home in the first place.
VOX
October 6, 2020