Opposing a permanent solution to these problems is fundamentally immoral. The absence of a federal paid-leave program that covers all private-sector workers also hurts our economy. It can devastate the well-being of millions of American families on tight budgets. Just “three days of unpaid sick time translate into a household’s monthly utilities budget, preventing the worker from paying for electricity and heat,” according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute.
The Hill
July 6, 2020
Since the 1970s, wages and benefits have stagnated, falling out of step with workers’ productivity. Source: Economic Policy Institute
Bloomberg BusinessWeek
July 6, 2020
David Cooper of the Economic Policy Institute says minimum-wage workers will actually spend the extra money – maybe on things like movie tickets.
“Raising the minimum wage is one of the simplest and most straightforward ways to get money into the hands of people that are very likely to go out and spend those dollars right away,” he said.
Marketplace
July 6, 2020
“This report may be a kind of high point,” said Heidi Shierholz, a former Labor Department chief economist now at the Economic Policy Institute. Moreover, she noted that significant portions of the federal government’s pandemic relief package are scheduled to expire in a few weeks.
LA Times
July 6, 2020
These unemployment rates are substantially higher than for white workers, who saw their unemployment rate drop to 10.1 percent in June. The unemployment rate for Black men is now at its highest point in this recession, rising last month to 16.3 percent in June, notes Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Forbes
July 6, 2020
Last week, the Economic Policy Institute released a study that showed that unemployment benefits were making up a record percentage of American household income. This was largely due to the increased unemployment benefit provided by the federal CARES Act, which has added $600 a week to state unemployment benefits. These benefits have been a lifeline for tens of millions of Americans throughout the coronavirus recession and have powered much of the consumer spending during this time.
New York Observer
July 6, 2020
But the reality is, this simple statistic fails to tell the whole story of joblessness in America right now. Heidi Shierholz, Director of Policy at the Economic Policy Institute, thoroughly put the report in context in a Twitter thread this morning. “The official unemployment rate was 11.1% in June, a welcome improvement from the last two months — but aside from April and May, it’s still higher than any unemployment rate we’ve seen since the Great Depression,” she wrote.
Refinery29
July 6, 2020
At 5.3 percentage points, the gap is now the widest since May 2015 and exposes an important economic component of racial inequality at a pivotal moment in U.S. race relations. The country has been rocked by nationwide protests over police brutality against African Americans in recent weeks, following the death of a Black man in police custody in Minneapolis.
“Unfortunately that is consistent with the pattern that we have observed for decades in this country,” said Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity, and the economy.
Reuters
July 6, 2020
Citing federal government data, the Economic Policy Institute has said only about 30% of workers have the ability to work from home. Less than one in five black workers and roughly one in six Latino workers are able to work from home.
Boulder Weekly
July 6, 2020
Finally, the flex workers are not well surveyed. Just-in-time manufacturing often means just-in-time workers, but they don’t make the record book. The Economic Policy Institute’s Lonnie Golden, Ph.D., found in 2015 that “ten percent of the workforce is assigned to irregular and on-call work shift times and this figure is likely low.”
Forbes
July 6, 2020