“It’s not obvious to me why we should shove more firms like Carnival closer to bankruptcy — and threaten to extinguish even more jobs than have already been destroyed — just to allow hedge fund vultures to reap the benefits of having their predatory loans be Carnival’s only option,” Josh Bivens of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute wrote last month.
Politico
July 16, 2020
The enhanced UI benefits have been deemed the “best” part of the economic response by Josh Bivens and Heidi Shierholz, economists at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Not only did it help keep people home in the middle of a global health crisis, but it also kept money moving through the economy. Consumer spending is critical for any sort of recovery. “Cutting off a policy that helps households maintain spending is a terrible idea, both for these households’ welfare and for macroeconomic stabilization,” writes Bivens.
CNBC
July 16, 2020
That’s never really worked out before. These people were arguing about “re-skilling” during the slow recovery from the Great Recession, too, said Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the progressive Economic Policy Institute and a former chief economist for the U.S. Department of Labor.
“Those claims were wrong back then,” Shierholz said. “It’s more blatantly wrong now.”
The Huffington Post
July 16, 2020
Economists have repeatedly warned that allowing the enhanced unemployment benefits to expire at the end of July would slash the incomes of more than 30 million Americans by 50-75%. According to Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute, such a steep income cut could also cause massive job losses and a decline in economic growth.
Common Dreams
July 16, 2020
Economic Policy Institute reseracher Josh Bivens told Common Dreams that budget cuts in the context of the pandemic-triggered recession are a recipe for economic disaster.
“We have noted estimates of the state and local shortfalls between now and the end of 2021 hover around $1 trillion,” said Bivens, “and if we do nothing to close that gap, we’ll end 2021 with roughly 5 million fewer jobs in the U.S. economy than we otherwise would have had.”
Common Dreams
July 16, 2020
That can make it very hard to determine if your job is safe, or if you’ve been furloughed, if your job is coming back. For some, those job losses will be permanent. About 11% of Americans who are out of work because of the coronavirus pandemic don’t have a good chance of getting called back to their old jobs, according to recent research from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. And with coronavirus cases increasing in several states, there are recent signs that layoffs may start to increase again and hiring will slow down.
CNBC
July 16, 2020
Josh Bivens is the research director at the Economic Policy Institute.
WNYC
July 14, 2020
The cost to the Federal Govt for the extra unemployment insurance payments ($600/wk) has been approximately $72 Billion/mo. The Economic Policy Institute is suggesting the payments be continued for a year (or likely, until a cure is discovered or a vaccine developed).
Seeking Alpha
July 14, 2020
Since the establishment of the Wagner Act in 1935, private-sector workers have been legally guaranteed the right to organize workplace unions and collectively bargain. But according to a 2019 report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a left-leaning think tank, more than 41 percent of employers were found to have violated the federal law in union election campaigns. According to Celine McNicholas, labor counsel for the EPI and co-author of the report, part of the reason companies feel secure in breaking the law by firing workers or threatening to discipline them for organizing a union is that the enforcement of the law is lax, cases brought by unfairly discharged workers can drag on for years, and the penalties to many employers — rehiring the employee plus back pay, which deducts any income they earned from another job — are a slap on the wrist compared to having to deal with a more expensive and protected workforce.
Eater
July 14, 2020