The J-1 program, supposedly a cultural exchange experience for students, is similarly exploitative, according to a report last year from the Economic Policy Institute. The skilled workers of the H-1B program are paid more than H-2A, H-2B and J-1 workers, but they still get less than the local median wage for their occupations.
Truthout
July 20, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute agrees. “Occupational segregation is particularly devastating for black women, who face a history of deep-seated racial and gender discrimination,” senior economist Elise Gould wrote in a February 2019 blog on the nonprofit think tank’s website titled, “Stark black–white divide in wages is widening further.”
Gould notes the wage disparity between Black and white people is the narrowest at the bottom of the scale where the minimum wage “keeps the lowest-wage black workers from even lower wages.” Even if Black people pursue education to close the wage gap, Gould says that racial wealth gaps “have been almost entirely unmoved.
Colorado Springs Independent
July 20, 2020
The push for stimulus checks amid a $1 trillion cap is a “real problem,” Josh Bivens, research director of the Economic Policy Institute, told Newsweek, “because they’re quite expensive.” Given the money checks eat up, he said it’s possible “higher priority” items, such as extending the unemployment expansion, could get “crowded out.”
Newsweek
July 20, 2020
Richard Rothstein: author, “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.”
NPR
July 20, 2020
But nearly half of the U.S. population is still jobless, and millions will remain jobless for the foreseeable future. There are 14 million more unemployed people than there are jobs, per the Economic Policy Institute.
Axios
July 20, 2020
As Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute points out, “Cutting off the $600 cannot incentivize people to get jobs that aren’t there.”
Politicus USA
July 20, 2020
Black people make up about one in nine workers overall, but about one in six essential workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, due to their disproportionate presence in grocery stores, public transit, health care, social services, and other industries.
The Counter
July 20, 2020
Per the Economic Policy Institute, in 2019, black unemployment was at least twice as high as white unemployment in 14 states. Black unemployment is roughly 50% higher than that of whites.
Boise Weekly
July 20, 2020
Annual infant care is on average about $21,000, while care for a 4-year-old is around $15,000, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Daily Hampshire Gazette
July 20, 2020