“In case the administration hasn’t noticed, the immigration system is already shut down, almost entirely, as a result of the pandemic,” said Daniel Costa, an attorney with the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
“Considering the number of new coronavirus infections continues to increase rapidly in the United States and abroad, it’s difficult to imagine the immigration system opening back up anytime soon,” Costa wrote in an analysis published Tuesday.
“Would any of the banned visas have been issued in these programs before the end of the year absent this proclamation? I’m not convinced they would have.”
Voice of America
June 26, 2020
“A huge share of jobless people will be forced to exist on much less than what they had before,” says Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Shierholz, however, says, “The answer is not to back off the $600 but to make work more attractive,” perhaps by letting recipients continue to receive some of the benefits even when they go back to work. Goldman Sachs believes Congress ultimately will extend the payment but at $300 a week.
USA Today
June 26, 2020
Valerie Rawlston Wilson, director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute, said schools need standards in place for teachers, staff and student safety.
“I don’t know that parents will feel very confident in sending their students back to school if they don’t have consistent enforceable standards,” Wilson said.
Patch
June 26, 2020
The job market is “not really improving,” said Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute. “I do think that people are getting hired back, but we are continuing to see an absolute hemorrhaging of jobs,” Shierholz told The Washington Post. “Just record levels of people.”
The Fiscal Times
June 26, 2020
New reports from the Economic Policy Institute suggest that Black Americans are not only experiencing additional risk factors on their health, there’s also inequality in the job market.
Black Americans are reportedly least likely to be able to continue to work from the safety of their home, and are disproportionately found among the essential workers of today’s economy — meaning they continue to go into their workplace to help and service others.
According to the report, Black Americans make up 1 in 9 workers in the overall general population. However, in the frontline industries, they make up 1 in 6 workers. This means increased exposure to COVID-19.
Healthline
June 26, 2020
More than one in five workers are currently on unemployment benefits or are waiting to get on, according to the Economic Policy Institute, as the U.S. economy continues to be ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic. Currently, those who are unemployed qualify for their standard state benefit and an additional $600 per week from the federal government. But without action from Congress, that extra weekly benefit expires July 31, even as over 19 million people in the U.S. remain unemployed.
CNBC
June 26, 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