Heidi Sheirholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, said that year-over-year wage growth was massive in April, when average hourly earnings stood at 7.9%. (Hourly earnings have previously hovered above 3% in previous months.)
CNET
August 21, 2020
If Congress decides to reinstate a federal unemployment benefit bonus — in any amount — it will likely take two to four weeks for payments to flow to states and then recipients, according to the Economic Policy Institute. So far, the proposal has been introduced only in the Senate. Democratic congressional leaders are currently negotiating with the GOP on the particulars of the plan.
CNET
August 21, 2020
With the economic fallout of the pandemic, the stakes are higher than ever. According to the Economic Policy Institute, state and local governments face a $1 trillion shortfall by the end of 2021. In what is sure to be a protracted period of austerity, high unemployment and fraying health care and public welfare systems, our communities deserve better and need more than outsize spending on police.
USA Today
August 21, 2020
While BLS, which is non-partisan, didn’t discuss the political implications of the rise in jobless claims or the end of the federal jobless checks, speakers at the virtual Democratic National Convention did. So did the Economic Policy Institute.
“Last week was the third week of unemployment in this pandemic for which recipients did not get the extra $600,” EPI Policy Director Heidi Shierholz said. “That means people on unemployment insurance are now 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. 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 21, 2020
The virus’s economic impact fell particularly hard on Latina workers, who were overrepresented in the industries most devastated by COVID-19-induced shutdowns, according to the analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
Citing the “historical segregation” of workers, “job losses do not affect workers of different races and ethnicities and genders in a similar way,” wrote co-authors Elise Gould, Daniel Perez and Valerie Wilson.
Latinx workers as a group are caught in a “double bind,” Wilson added in a statement, “They are the least likely to be able to work from home to avoid coronavirus exposure and the most likely to have lost their job during the COVID-19 recession,” she said.
MarketWatch
August 21, 2020
A new report by the liberal Economic Policy Institute shows that CEO compensation at the top 350 companies in America grew to $21.3 million in 2019, which was $2.6 million or 14 percent higher than in 2018.
Urban Milwaukee
August 21, 2020
A new report from the Economic Policy Institute says the COVID-19 pandemic is disproportionately killing Latinos.
Valerie Wilson is the director of the institute’s Program on Race, Inequality and the Economy.
“In particular, among those between the ages of 35 and 44,” Wilson said. “I believe that the Latinx death rate was as much as almost nine times higher than it was for white Americans in that same age category.”
Arizona Public Media
August 21, 2020
The most recent information breaking down unemployment by race is from the last three months of 2019, before the pandemic. Nationally, Black workers had the highest unemployment rate at 5.7 percent. In Florida, it was higher at 5.9 percent. At the time, overall unemployment in the Sunshine State was 3.1 percent. As of June 2020, it’s 10.4 percent.
The Economic Policy Institute says in the coming weeks it will release the most recent data breaking down unemployment by racial demographics.
10 Tampa Bay
August 21, 2020
With Covid shuttering many college campuses this fall, as many as one out of five college kids may be considering taking a gap year instead of taking online classes from their mother’s couch. A typical rationale: “I’d rather get a Door Dash job than miss out on my college experience.” It could prove an expensive choice.
Bloomberg
August 21, 2020