Media clips

• As GOP Blocks Covid Relief, Experts Warn of ‘Wave of Despair’ and Devastating Anecdotes Show Crisis Already Here

  Last week, President Donald Trump issued an executive order partially reinstating a federal unemployment benefit, offering just $300 per week. The order was derided as “an unserious move of political theater” by the Economic Policy Institute.

  “This inaction and ongoing uncertainty is causing significant economic pain for workers who have lost their job during the pandemic and their families,” wrote EPI economic analyst Julia Wolfe on Thursday.

  Common Dreams August 14, 2020
• Economists Call Out Trump and Congress for Stalled Stimulus Package as Unemployment Remains at Historic Levels

  Julia Wolfe, state economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, shared similar concerns in a Thursday morning blog post.

  “In an unserious move of political theater, the Trump administration has proposed starting up an entirely new system of restoring wages to laid-off workers through executive order,” Wolfe wrote.

  Newsweek August 14, 2020
• Equal Pay Day for Black women is today, August 13th. There’s a reason for that
  Nor does it reflect that Black women typically work fewer hours and therefore make less than White men. That’s in part because they’re more likely to be unemployed or work part-time, said Valerie Wilson, director of the program on race, ethnicity and the economy at the liberal Economic Policy Institute.

  EPI did account for those factors and found that, based on average hourly earnings, Black women still earned only 66 cents for every dollar White, non-Hispanic men made.
  CNN August 14, 2020
• For Black youth, is democracy hypocrisy?

  Society and its justice system, which Georgetown Law Center Professor Paul Butler discusses in his book, Chokehold, foment destructive patterns of youth development. Many urban schools are dysfunctional, and the prisons reflect a punishment system that does not take appropriate steps to correctly treat people and their problems. As the Economic Policy Institute reported in 2018, our society since 1968 has failed to address historic inequities related to health, housing, employment, income, and educational opportunity – all of which begin at child birth and persist throughout the lives of people of color.

  The CT Mirror August 14, 2020
• Here’s how much Dollar Tree workers are paid

  And not even $17,300 is near the amount of money that a family needs to reach a “modest yet adequate” standard of living in most parts of the United States, estimates the Economic Policy Institute. According to the institute’s Family Budget Calculator, which takes into account the costs of housing, food, transportation, healthcare, taxes, and other necessities, it would cost a single person $51,323 dollars a year to live in the New York Metro area. That same person would have to dish out $42,825 a year to live in Los Angeles County, and it would take them 38,605 dollars a year to live in the Chicago Metro area.

  The List August 14, 2020
• It’s not just the extra $600—millions of workers could exhaust all of their jobless benefits by January

  Some workers, including those laid off in 2019 and at the very beginning of the pandemic, could even exhaust their benefits before the end of this year. The number of people currently claiming extended benefits, which kick in after regular UI benefits and the CARES Act’s emergency UI are exhausted, is at its highest level so far this recession, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). That people qualify for extended benefits at all is a sign that “policymakers should extend [PEUC] even further,” writes EPI.

  CNBC August 14, 2020
• Improved Jobs Numbers Fail to Keep Dow Aloft as Stimulus Talks Drag On

  Calling the executive order “an unserious move of political theater,” Economic Policy Institute researcher Julia Wolfe said the drop in spending could cost the U.S. economy up to 2.6 million additional jobs over the next year.

  Courthouse News Service August 14, 2020
• ‘Morally Obscene,’ Says Sanders as McConnell Adjourns Senate for Month-Long Recess Without Deal on Coronavirus Relief

  But Julia Wolfe, state economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote in a blog post Thursday that the Labor Department’s report downplays the number of workers who filed for unemployment benefits last week. The actual figure, according to Wolfe, is 1.3 million.

  “Astonishingly high numbers of workers continue to claim UI, and we are still 12.9 million jobs short of February employment levels,” Wolfe wrote. “And yet, Senate Republicans allowed the across-the-board $600 increase in weekly UI benefits—the most effective economic policy crisis response so far—to expire.”

  Common Dreams August 14, 2020
• More than 1 in 3 Black women are on the front lines of the pandemic, but they aren’t even close to equal pay

  In fact, Black women doctors, nurses, teachers, child-care workers, waitresses and cashiers are, on average, paid 11-27% less than White men who are working the same job, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  “I think there’s a lot of attention given to gender pay gaps in general and much less to the intersectional nature of the gender pay disparity for Black women, Latinas, Native American women and even for Asian-American and Pacific Islander women,” Valerie Wilson, a director for the Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity and the economy, tells CNBC Make It. “You know, it’s important that we understand that the gender pay gap has multiple dimensions and Black women, in particular, face dual penalty because of gender and race.”

  CNBC August 14, 2020
• Nation’s wealthiest Black man says corporate America should consider slavery reparations

  A Brookings Institute analysis found that in 2016, the typical white family had a net worth nearly 10 times that of a Black family ($171,000 compared to $17,150). In 2019, the average wage gap between a Black and White worker in the U.S. was 26.5%, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Smith also noted that 70% of African American communities do not have a branch bank, meaning it can be much harder to obtain credit.

  ABC News August 14, 2020