Though new weekly unemployment claims have fallen since the peak in late March, the Economic Policy Institute notes that new weekly claims are still “more than twice the worst week of the Great Recession.” And, the EPI reports, the number of people continuing to receive unemployment benefits after initially filing when the pandemic first hit is still very high. With some experts estimating that 30% of COVID-19 job losses could be permanent, the end of PUA could be devastating to many. About 11 million Americans are currently receiving PUA, and the EPI points out that coronavirus job loss is impacting Black and Latinx workers at much higher rates, further widening economic inequality along racial lines.
Refinery29
June 29, 2020
Adding together all the individuals on the various state and federal unemployment programs, 33.1 million workers are either on unemployment benefits or are waiting to receive benefits, according to The Economic Policy Institute’s Heidi Shierholz: “That is more than one in five workers.”
Politico Morning Shift
June 29, 2020
“Letting this extra $600 in unemployment insurance benefit expire at the end of July would by itself cause more job loss than was seen in either of the recessions of the early 1990s or early 2000s,” writes Josh Bivens, director of research for the Economic Policy Institute. Going forward, Bivens predicts that extending the $600 unemployment benefits through the middle of next year would provide an average GDP quarterly boost of 3.7% and employment of 5.1 million workers.
CNBC
June 29, 2020
“It is just deeply disturbing,” Heidi Shierholz, chief economist at the Department of Labor during the Obama administration, said of the unemployment figures. “I do think that people are getting hired back, but we are continuing to see an absolute hemorrhaging of jobs. Just record levels of people.”
Washington Post
June 29, 2020
White workers, on average, are paid more than Black and Latinx workers at almost every education level, according to a 2018 report by the Economic Policy Institute. Whites with an advanced degree received an hourly wage of $44.46, while Latinx earned $38.47 and Blacks earned $36.23.
CNBC
June 26, 2020
This means consumers, the main driver of economic growth in America, will remain constrained in their spending. That’s why “cutting off a policy support that helps households maintain spending is a terrible idea, both for these households’ welfare and for macroeconomic stabilization,” said Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute.
CNN
June 26, 2020
Economist Josh Bivens at the progressive-leaning think-tank Economic Policy Institute seized upon today’s data to argue for an extension of the federal top-up to unemployment benefits. “The economy’s growth will continue to be tightly constrained by insufficient demand for goods and services, and cutting off a policy support that helps households maintain spending is a terrible idea,” Bivens wrote in a blog post.
“We estimate that extending the $600 UI [unemployment insurance] benefits through the middle of 2021 would provide an average quarterly boost to gross domestic product (GDP) of 3.7% and employment of 5.1 million workers,” he added.
Al Jazeera
June 26, 2020
There’s also implications for the health care industry, which as a whole is about 18% of the nation’s gross domestic product. The Economic Policy Institute estimated a loss of more than 1 million jobs if the Affordable Care Act is repealed.
Marketplace
June 26, 2020
“Letting this extra $600 in unemployment insurance benefit expire at the end of July would by itself cause more job loss than was seen in either of the recessions of the early 1990s or early 2000s,” writes Josh Bivens, director of research for the Economic Policy Institute.
Going forward, Bivens predicts that extending the $600 unemployment benefits through the middle of next year would provide an average GDP quarterly boost of 3.7% and employment of 5.1 million workers.
CNBC
June 26, 2020
Economic Policy Institute (EPI) research director Josh Bivens, in an analysis of new personal income data released Friday by the Commerce Department, said not extending the enhanced unemployment insurance (UI) past July 31 “would be both cruel and bad economics.”
“The economy’s growth will continue to be tightly constrained by insufficient demand for goods and services, and cutting off a policy support that helps households maintain spending is a terrible idea,” Bivens wrote, “both for these households’ welfare and for macroeconomic stabilization.”
Common Dreams
June 26, 2020