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
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 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
“There is no area in the country with zero risks and many areas where there’s escalating risks,” said Lawrence Mishel, a distinguished fellow at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
According to a recent study commissioned by EPI, just 30% of people working outside of their homes were receiving some form of hazard pay, while 50% were concerned about bringing the virus back from those jobs. An estimated 40.6% of Black workers reported receiving hazard pay, followed by 33.5% of Hispanic workers and 26.8% of White workers.
July 9, 2020
While Congress continues negotiations of what another stimulus package may look like, the labor market has shown modest gains after a precipitous drop at the outset of the pandemic, which resulted in a loss of 26.45 million jobs from March to April. Many businesses called people back to work as state economies reopened in May. However, the Congressional Budget Office projects continued high unemployment and estimates the unemployment rate will reach 11.5% by the end of the year, and the Economic Policy Institute estimates 17.6 million unemployed Americans are unlikely to return to their pre-pandemic jobs.
CNBC
July 9, 2020
According to Valerie Wilson from the Economic Policy Institute, in 2018, a median Black worker only earned about 75% of what a White person does ($14.92 per hour to $19.79), and the Economist reported that in 2019 mean household wealth was $138,000 for Blacks, and $933,700 for Whites. While more than 72% of Whites own homes usually in nice neighborhoods, only 42% of Blacks do usually in shabbier environments. Unemployment rates are typically twice that of Whites.
Counter Punch
July 9, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute estimated in May that since the coronavirus pandemic began in the U.S., 16.2 million Americans have lost the health coverage they had access to through their employers, as the unemployment crisis caused by the public health emergency has left more than 32 million without work. EPI and others have recommended since the pandemic began that Medicare and Medicaid be expanded to cope with the economic effects.
Common Dreams
July 9, 2020