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
Claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance for self-employed workers ineligible for standard unemployment benefits added 760,000 to the total. “It’s a sustained hemorrhaging of jobs unlike anything we’ve seen,” said Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank.
The Week
June 19, 2020
Claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance for self-employed workers ineligible for standard unemployment benefits added 760,000 to the total. “It’s a sustained hemorrhaging of jobs unlike anything we’ve seen,” said Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank.
The Week
June 19, 2020
Claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance for self-employed workers ineligible for standard unemployment benefits added 760,000 to the total. “It’s a sustained hemorrhaging of jobs unlike anything we’ve seen,” said Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank.
The Week
June 19, 2020
The federal minimum wage remains stuck at $7.25. It was last increased in 2009 and, according to the Economic Policy Institute, since the minimum wage was first established in 1938, Congress has never let it go unchanged for so long. However, the battle to raise that amount has picked up significant steam in recent years. Per the FightFor15.org website, the group’s organized operations began in 2012 when two hundred fast-food workers walked off the job to demand $15/hr and union rights in New York City, and it is now “a global movement in over 300 cities on six continents.” In July of 2019, the House voted to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025. Per the New York Times, the raging coronavirus pandemic has led to a recent wave of worker activism, as employees at Instacart, Amazon and Whole Foods have gone on strike and demanded increased protections. Kroger, Starbucks, Walmart and Amazon had been paying hourly bonuses for workers during the height of the pandemic, but those four companies have ended those incentive programs in recent weeks. Hourly wages at Walmart start at $11 an hour.
Forbes
June 17, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute and Center for Economic and Policy Research argued it could result in job loss and wage reduction. Economists Peter Petri and Michael Plummer said the deal would benefit the poorest countries participating in the deal, with the implication being that it wouldn’t benefit the wealthier nations.
UT Daily Bacon
June 17, 2020
On March 19, shortly before shelter-at-home orders were issued, the Economic Policy Institute estimated that only 16 percent of Latinos and 20 percent of black people nationally could work from home, compared with about 30 percent of whites and 37 percent of Asians. A week later, when only 4,700 New York City residents had tested positive for the virus and 121 had died, Comptroller Scott Stringer released a report on the city’s frontline workers that showed that about 75 percent were people of color, 60 percent were women, and more than 50 percent foreign born. His recommendations included providing child care to all frontline workers, making hotels available to minimize risk to family members, and ensuring everyone could access health care. The proposals, mostly ignored by the city, received little attention, except in a few reports after Stringer’s mother died from the coronavirus. As of early June, about one in every 400 New York City residents have died from Covid-19, and more than 120,000 people in the United States are infected.
The Nation
June 17, 2020