Josh Bivens, the director of the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, said expanded unemployment benefits was a key piece of the CARES Act that’s crucial for families where someone has lost a job. The expanded unemployment benefits are set to expire at the end of July.
According to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, Bivens told CNET, if Congress doesn’t renew the extra $600 at the end of July the country will have 5 million fewer jobs a year from now than if Congress kept the enhanced benefits running. “It’s a huge obstacle to recovery if we let it lapse,” Bivens said.
CNET
July 10, 2020
Despite Brown v. Board of Education making racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional in 1954, schools in the U.S. are more segregated than ever. According to the Economic Policy Institute, Black students are five times as likely as white students to attend a racially segregated school, and twice as likely to attend high-poverty schools. In 2016, school districts that predominantly serve students of color received $23 billion less in funding than mostly white school districts in the U.S., even while serving the same number of students. This lasting racial and economic segregation, due to a long history of housing and loan discrimination against Black communities, has been heavily linked to the racial achievement gap.
The Daily Pennsylvanian
July 10, 2020
For examples of smarter ways to study racism, Spriggs points to the work of Ohio State economist Travon Logan, who has looked into how Black voting rights after the US Civil War led to improved public finances and concrete gains in Black literacy that were erased when those voting rights disappeared at the end of Reconstruction. He also commends the work of Jhacova Williams, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. She has examined how the share of streets named after Confederate leaders in a city predict differences in unemployment rates and earnings between Blacks and whites even after accounting for educational attainment, which suggests that places with a history of racism have worse racial inequality today.
Quartz
July 10, 2020
“Cutting off that $600 will exacerbate racial and ethnic inequality, it will exacerbate gender inequality,” said the Economic Policy Institute’s Heidi Shierholz, former DOL chief economist. She called the money “a lifeline for many women, many minorities — Black and Hispanic workers in particular.”
“It is not a stretch to say this policy choice is also a racial justice policy choice.”
Politico
July 10, 2020
Because they believe — and as history has proven — that education “is one piece of moving the ball forward” and integral to individual success as well as a functioning democracy and social justice, Nashville-based Bulk Bookstore has curated a special collection of ten important and influential books on racial equality. Offered at-cost to schools, community libraries, police departments, businesses and anyone interested in the BLM movement, Bulk Bookstore’s Equality Library contains works by Angela Davis, Harvard Professor Cornell West, Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Policy Institute Richard Rothstein as well as other prominent scholars and activists.
Vegas News
July 10, 2020
In 2019, 25.8% of these young workers had jobs in leisure and hospitality compared to 7.4% of workers 25-years-old and older, according to an analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics by Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a labor-focused think tank. That sector lost nearly 41.8% of its jobs between February and May 2020.
MarketWatch
July 10, 2020
Wages as a share of the U.S. economy are near their lowest level since the Federal Reserve began collecting such data in the 1940s. Meanwhile, the Economic Policy Institute estimates that CEO compensation has grown more than 900% over the past four decades, compared with just 12% for the typical worker.
Bloomberg
July 10, 2020
In New York, the impact has been crucial. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that the $600 weekly payment has boosted income in the state by $41 million. (Technically there are two benefits — a $600 weekly additional payment for those who qualify for traditional unemployment insurance and a new $600 benefit for those gig economy workers and independent contractors).
The City
July 10, 2020
“Unfortunately, there are more recent indicators that layoffs are going to pick up again as people being laid off for the second time and hires will likely slow as well,” Elise Gould, senior economist for the Economic Policy Institute, wrote Tuesday.
Courthouse News Service
July 10, 2020
Josh Bivens, the director of the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, said expanded unemployment benefits was a key piece of the CARES Act that’s crucial for families where someone has lost a job. The expanded unemployment benefits are set to expire at the end of July.
According to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, Bivens told CNET, if Congress doesn’t renew the extra $600 at the end of July the country will have 5 million fewer jobs a year from now than if Congress kept the enhanced benefits running. “It’s a huge obstacle to recovery if we let it lapse,” Bivens said.
CNET
July 10, 2020