Elise Gould, senior economist at the nonprofit think tank Economic Policy Institute, said layoffs could pick back up again soon.
“Unfortunately, more trouble is on the horizon as coronavirus cases continue to rise, states begin to re-shutter, and unemployed workers face further economic devastation when the unemployment insurance enhancements expire on July 25,” Gould wrote.
Courthouse News Service
July 9, 2020
“This suggests is that a significant share of the initial UI claims in May were from layoffs in March or April, and people either waited to file claims until May, or state agencies were working through backlogs of claims,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
“Unfortunately, there are more recent indicators that layoffs are going to pick up again with people being laid off for the second time and hires will likely slow as well.”
Reuters
July 9, 2020
Black workers typically face nearly double the rate of unemployment compared to white workers, said Valerie Wilson, director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington D.C.-based think tank. That pattern is “incredibly persistent” in good and bad economic conditions — and across gender, education and geography, Wilson said.
“I find it difficult to attribute something that consistent to anything other than racial discrimination in the labor market.”
Wisconsin Watch
July 9, 2020
The gains in May and June still only account for about one-third of the jobs lost in the previous two months, though. The Economic Policy Institute estimates nearly 12 million workers who lost jobs due to the virus have little hope of being called back to their jobs. More than 1 million people are filing new claims for unemployment benefits every week, as well, as businesses struggle to get back off the ground and the threat of new lockdowns looms.
Sinclair Broadcast Group
July 9, 2020
In 2015, the Economic Policy Institute demonstrated that childcare was essentially unaffordable for a parent making minimum wage in the United States. The cost of childcare in every state was at least 30 percent of a minimum wage worker’s salary and more than 80 percent in states like New York. In Washington, D.C., the cost of childcare even exceeded the annual earnings of a minimum wage worker.
The New Republic
July 9, 2020
The consequences of the drops in GDP could be catastrophic, Economic Policy Institute director of research Josh Bivens told Common Dreams.
“We think that if the federal government fails to address the coming state and local government shortfalls, it will guarantee a prolonged recession and several years of excess unemployment,” said Bivens. “We have noted estimates of the state and local shortfalls between now and the end of 2021 hover around $1 trillion, and if we do nothing to close that gap, we’ll end 2021 with roughly 5 million fewer jobs in the US economy than we otherwise would have had.”
Common Dreams
July 9, 2020
Economic Policy Institute economists Heidi Shierholz and Elise Gould told Axios that on top of the 17.8 million unemployed workers, there are another 2 million workers who were misclassified as “employed not at work.”
Newsmax
July 7, 2020
It is far too early to know the extent of COVID-19’s impact – either from a public health or economic perspective. Instead, policymakers need to be vigilant in ensuring they’ve done everything they can to keep people safe and the economy stable in the face of the continuing effects of the pandemic. The key to both goals is having the federal government provide substantial fiscal aid to state and local governments over the coming years—on the order of $1 trillion between now and the end of 2021. Failure to do this will make U.S. families less safe and will leave the U.S. economy short more than 5 million jobs at the end of this time.
Tennessean
July 7, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) points out “this is the 15th week in a row that unemployment claims have been more than twice the worst week of the Great Recession.” On job creation, EPI notes we still have 14.7 million fewer jobs than in February. And June’s employment survey was conducted in the week ending June 13th, which came just before Covid cases began spiking upwards in Florida, Texas, Arizona, California, and other states.
Forbes
July 7, 2020