Center for American Progress
August 11, 2020
Instead, with some Senate Republicans balking at another round of federal stimulus and negotiations in shambles, President Donald Trump added another burden. In an executive order on Saturday, he extended $400 per week in additional unemployment benefits – but is asking states to foot a quarter of the bill.
“It’s completely unrealistic,” said Josh Bivens, director of research for the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank in Washington. “States need a lot more money from the federal government. They don’t need new demands to pay money. They’re already in the hole.”
Bloomberg
August 11, 2020
According to estimates by the Economic Policy Institute, failing to extend the PUC through July 2021 could lead to a loss of 66,898 Colorado jobs over the next year — hampering the state’s recovery efforts.
Colorado Politics
August 11, 2020
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the cost to place one child in daycare ranges from $10,000 to $14,000 each year. With Virginian’s median household income resting at $77,000 a year, daycare expenses make up over 16 percent of their yearly income.
Daily Press
August 11, 2020
That translates to 20 straight weeks where claims have been higher than the worst week of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, says Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist at the Labor Department.
Barron’s
August 11, 2020
Economists such as Josh Bivens, from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, say that putting more of an onus on states during a recession will backfire and lead to more economic hardship.
With changes expected to take months to carry out and just $44 billion of FEMA funds available to begin with, Bivens said carrying out the order would burden states with a lot of work for a very small payoff. At the current level of unemployment, the fund would be exhausted in just more than a month.
“It’s going to take a long time to set up, and it’s not going to last a long time at all,” he said.
The Hill
August 11, 2020
He also noted that the extra $400 per week for eligible jobless workers would still represent an average 22 percent pay cut for those who had through July been receiving an extra $600 weekly from the federal government.
And that in turn is likely to lead to a drop in consumer spending that has been supporting jobs. The Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, estimates that cutting the enhanced benefit by $200 per week would cost 1.7 million jobs.
Politico
August 11, 2020
That official unemployment rate also masks the true number of people who lost jobs in the recession, noted Heidi Shierholz, a former Labor Department economist and director of the Economic Policy Institute. A truer unemployment rate, she said, would be 13.8% if one included the 5 million people who have left the labor force since February and another 1.3 million who she said were wrongly classified as employed.
CBS Moneywatch
August 10, 2020
“There are 14 million more unemployed workers than job openings,” EPI senior economist Heidi Shierholz says.
Axios
August 10, 2020