They said the problem with the earlier lockdowns from March to May was that some states deemed a large portion of its population essential workers. But the Economic Policy Institute said only 39% of workers in the U.S. are essential.
Cointelegraph
August 10, 2020
“I think what most employers are going to do is not pass this on to their employees,” added Josh Bivens, the director of research at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “They’re not going to give money to the worker because the government is at some point going to come back for it.”
The Washington Post
August 10, 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
Elise Gould, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, noted that public sector employment is still 1 million jobs below its February level after loads of layoffs during the beginning of the pandemic.
“We’ve seen large reductions in state and local public sector employment — a sector which disproportionately employs women and Black workers — over the last few months,” Gould wrote.
“I’d warn data watchers to consider those gains with a grain of salt, and to look at the overall changes from February (pre-COVID-19) to July.”
The Hill
August 10, 2020
The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Friday that the U.S. added 1.8 million jobs in July, a significant drop compared to 4.8 million in June and 2.7 million in May. Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, noted in a blog post that the U.S. is “still 12.9 million jobs below where we were in February, before the pandemic spread.”
“Federal policymakers need to act now to reinstate the $600 unemployment insurance benefits to the 30+ million workers who are desperately trying to make ends meet,” Gould wrote. “And, those benefits are supporting a huge amount of spending, which means, without it, the loss of about five million jobs.”
“Federal policymakers also need to provide massive fiscal relief to state and local governments,” added Gould, “so they can continue to provide necessary services and prevent unnecessary cuts to their budgets as their revenue falls.”
Common Dreams
August 10, 2020
“Because we did not put the public health measures in place necessary to successfully reopen, the coronavirus has spiked, and the jobs gains we saw in May and June have stalled, if not reversed. Now is not the time to cut benefits that are supporting jobs,” wrote Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, in a blog post.
CNN Business
August 10, 2020
Today’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows three months in a row of payroll employment gains, an increase in jobs of 1.8 million in July on top of 4.8 million in June and 2.7 million in May. But, because so many jobs were lost in March and April, we are still 12.9 million jobs below where we were in February, before the pandemic spread. The slowdown in jobs gained is likely due to a resurgence of the coronavirus and re-shuttering in parts of the country.
The Progressive Pulse
August 10, 2020
“The slowdown in jobs gained is likely due to a resurgence of the coronavirus and re-shuttering in parts of the country,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the nonprofit think tank Economic Policy Institute.
Most of the July employment gains were seen in the leisure and hospitality industry, which includes restaurants and bars. That sector added 592,000 positions, but it’s still down 2.6 million jobs since February. Retail trade added 258,000 jobs while professional and business services gained 170,000.
Gould noted the unemployment rate is still higher than the worst month of the Great Recession.
“Federal policymakers need to act now to reinstate the $600 unemployment insurance benefits to the 30+ million workers who are desperately trying to make ends meet,” she wrote. “And, those benefits are supporting a huge amount of spending, which means, with it, the loss of about 5 million jobs.”
Courthouse News
August 10, 2020