Any recent manufacturing gains were abruptly wiped out by the COVID-19 lockdown — with a staggering 1.2 million manufacturing jobs lost this year. If Trump wants to take credit for an economic boom after a decade of recovery from the Great Recession, then he must also own this collapse, thanks to his administration’s mismanagement of the pandemic, including its refusal to organize an effective national response.
The Hill
June 22, 2020
Jhacova Williams (Race and Inequality) is an economist for the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy (PREE). In this capacity, she explores the role of structural racism in shaping racial economic disparities in labor markets, housing, criminal justice, higher education, and other areas that have a direct impact on economic outcomes. Williams’s research has focused on Southern culture and the extent to which historical events continue to impact the political behavior and economic outcomes of Southern Blacks.
Valerie Wilson (Labor Economics) is the director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy (PREE), a nationally recognized source for expert reports and policy analyses on the economic condition of America’s people of color. Prior to joining EPI, Wilson was an economist and vice president of research at the National Urban League Washington Bureau. She has written extensively on various issues impacting economic inequality in the United States—including employment and training, income and wealth disparities, access to higher education, and social insurance.
Fortune
June 22, 2020
It was the 13th-straight week that filings topped 1 million. Until the present crisis, the most new claims in a single week had been 695,000, in 1982.
“It’s still more than twice the worst week of the [the last recession],” said Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank. “It’s a sustained hemorrhaging of jobs unlike anything we’ve seen before.”
Arkansas Democrat Gazette
June 22, 2020
Older workers are less likely than younger ones to have jobs that can be done remotely, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. Almost 8 in 10 workers over 65 can’t telecommute, compared with about 6 in 10 between 35 to 44, the analysis found.
USA Today
June 22, 2020
Black-owned businesses were more likely to be in industries hit hard by coronavirus-related restrictions, such as retail and hospitality, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, a labor-oriented think tank.
And when some relief finally came in the form of PPP loans for small businesses, Black business owners faced hurdles in getting approval, according to the EPI study. A major hurdle was the lack of preexisting relationships with the larger banks that were first to administer the loans, the study said.
LA Times
June 22, 2020
As we know the economy has been hammered by the COVID-19 shutdowns. Robert Scott is Senior Economist at the Economic Policy Institute, and he says things could get even worse before they get better.
Richard French Live
June 22, 2020
Most students are taught about the Jim Crow-era efforts to keep schools separate and unequal, but fewer probably know contemporary education shows levels of segregation not seen since before the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v Board of Education decision. For example, a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute found that black children are five times as likely as white children to attend racially and ethnically segregated schools and twice as likely to attend “high-poverty” schools.
The Washington Post
June 22, 2020
Researchers at the Economic Policy Institute say nationwide, job losses remain at historic levels, with more than one in five workers either relying on unemployment benefits or still waiting for their claims to be processed.
Public News Service
June 22, 2020
HOUSE EDUCATION PANEL TO DISCUSS INEQUITIES, COVID-19 TODAY: The House Education and Labor Committee today will hold a hearing on “Inequities Exposed: How COVID-19 Widened Racial Inequities in Education, Health, and the Workforce.” It starts at noon and can be watched via Webex.
— Members will hear from: Camara P. Jones, adjunct professor at Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University; Valerie Rawlston Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy; Avik Roy, president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity; and John B. King Jr., president of The Education Trust and former Education secretary under President Barack Obama.
Politico Morning Education
June 22, 2020
Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, suggested that the total number of workers currently receiving benefits or waiting for them is probably close to 34.5 million.
Politico Morning Shift
June 22, 2020