It used data from the Census Bureau’s 1-year American Community Survey from 2018, the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program from 2018, 2019 County Health Rankings, the National Partnership for Women and Families’ and the Economic Policy Institute.
Fox Business
July 17, 2020
“After decades, if not centuries, of unequal housing opportunities, people of color might be more likely to live in places where physical distancing is not an option,” Dr. Liu said, a point that the CDC has noted as well. They may also be more likely to occupy jobs as essential workers who don’t have the option of working from home, or in jobs where personal protective equipment is not as widely-provided (as opposed to essential workers in the medical field, for example.) Data from the Economic Policy Institute, for example, shows that people of color account for the majority of essential workers in food and agriculture and in industrial, commercial, residential facilities and services.
Popsugar
July 17, 2020
According to the Economic Policy Institute, during the pandemic 36.4 million people have applied for unemployment benefits nationwide and 2.4 million workers applied for benefits just last week, 50,000 of them from Michigan.
“That is the 17th week in a row that unemployment claims have been more than twice the worst week of the Great Recession,” said Heidi Shierholz, the senior economist and director of policy at Economic Policy Institute.
FOX 32
July 17, 2020
“As people continue to lose their jobs, which we expect that they will do unfortunately, we’re going to see losses in health insurance coverage,” Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), previously told Yahoo Finance. “That’s because in the United States, we’ve chosen as a country, unfortunately, to tie access to health insurance with employment.”
“If we avoided that,” he added, “if we made sure everybody was covered, everybody has access to health insurance regardless of their employment status, we wouldn’t be in this kind of predicament.”
Yahoo Finance
July 17, 2020
Some employee groups have experienced hurdles to remote work, however. During the initial wave of response to the pandemic in March and April, more than half of knowledge workers surveyed by workforce management software firm Asana said they lacked access to a dedicated desk, personal computer, laptop or reliable internet connection. A March report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that smaller percentages of Hispanic or Latino and Black or African American workers were able to work from home compared to their Asian and white counterparts.
HR Dive
July 17, 2020
“Cutting the $600 cannot incentivize people to get jobs that aren’t there,” wrote Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “The millions who will remain jobless after the extra $600 is cut off will have no choice but to drastically cut their spending, causing a sharp decline in their living standards, an increase in poverty, and completely unnecessary suffering.”
Courthouse News Service
July 17, 2020
Absent federal action, Wisconsin’s job losses could get even worse. A recent analysis conducted by the Economic Policy Institute estimates that without additional federal aid, Wisconsin will lose nearly 100,000 public and private jobs by the end of next year.
Urban Milwaukee
July 16, 2020
“Things are not getting much better economically,” said Julia Wolfe, an economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. “Even though you’re seeing a small uptick in employment through the jobs report over the last two months, people are still experiencing devastating levels of unemployment.”
San Francisco Chronicle
July 16, 2020
By the end of July, Congress will have to decide whether or not to extend federal unemployment benefits to Americans impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Forbes reporters Jack Brewster and Sarah Hansen explain what is at stake and the arguments for and against increased spending. [Heidi is in video]
Forbes
July 16, 2020