“Because most U.S. workers rely on their employer or a family member’s employer for health insurance, the shock of the coronavirus has cost millions of Americans their jobs and their access to healthcare in the midst of a public health catastrophe,” Josh Bivens, co-author of the study and director of research at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), said in a statement announcing the findings.
“Tying health insurance to the labor market is always terribly inefficient and problematic, but becomes particularly so during times of great labor market churn,” said Bivens.
Common Dreams
August 28, 2020
Robert E. Scott of the pro-labor Economic Policy Institute found that about 851,700 U.S. jobs were displaced by the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico from 1993 (shortly before NAFTA was implemented) to 2014. (Other studies, however, have found the job losses to be far less.)
The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service wrote in 2018, citing a 2014 study by the Economic Policy Institute, that “growth in the U.S. goods trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2013 eliminated or displaced 3.2 million U.S. jobs (three-fourths of which were in manufacturing).”
CNBC
August 28, 2020
“The change should address the issues that have plagued seasonally adjustments during this pandemic,” said Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
Reuters
August 28, 2020
Kenosha is located at the approximate midway point between Milwaukee and Chicago, two of the most racially segregated cities in the United States. A 2019 Economic Policy Institute report noted that Midwestern states, including Wisconsin, make up 10 of the 11 states “with the largest ratio between Black and white unemployment in 2017.” Additionally, five of the six metropolitan areas in America where Black residents experience concentrated poverty at rates over 40% are in the Midwest.
Complex
August 28, 2020
An estimated 12 million people have lost employer-sponsored health insurance during the pandemic, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute. That includes family members of those who lost jobs.
“The United States has chosen to really link health insurance coverage with employment,” said report co-author Ben Zipperer.
Marketplace
August 28, 2020
“The spending made possible by the $600 was supporting 5.1 million jobs,” said Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
Reuters
August 28, 2020
In the last five years, several state attorney general offices — including those in Pennsylvania and New Jersey — have launched units focused on defending workers, transforming their offices into what report author Terri Gerstein describes as a rarity: a high-profile government entity that’s willing to hold employers accountable. Previously, only three states had such units; now, there are nine, according to Gerstein’s Economic Policy Institute report published Thursday.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
August 28, 2020
“We’re going to see jobs that involve a lot of social contact like restaurants, hotels, tourism … be very depressed until we get a vaccine or effective treatment,” says Heidi Shierholz, former chief economist of the Obama administration’s Labor Department and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute.
Christian Science Monitor
August 28, 2020
“That means people on UI are now are forced to get by on the meager benefits which are in place without the extra payment, which are typically around 40% of their pre-virus earnings,” says Heidi Shierholz, policy director for 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.”
People’s World
August 28, 2020
“It’s clear. The days where the Fed Chair’s primary role is to pull away the punchbowl from the labor market just as things start going well should be seen as decisively over,” said L. Josh Bivens, research director at the labor-focused Economic Policy Institute, referring to a metaphor coined by a former Fed chair, William McChesney Martin, to describe how the central bank acts to contain inflation. “It is a very welcome acknowledgment about how much more room they have to probe the absolute limits of full employment,” Bivens said.
Reuters
August 28, 2020