Importantly however, these individuals were in many ways already excluded from the dynamic growth that characterized the months—and years—preceding this latest crisis, magnifying systemic racial, ethnic, gender, and geographic injustice and inequity. The Economic Policy Institute studied wages and inequality over the past two decades and found constant and—and in some cases worsening—wage gaps by gender and race. The black–white gap was significantly larger in 2019 (14.9%) than it was in 2000 (10.2%).
Atlantic Council
June 12, 2020
Further, many Americans who have returned to work face reduced hours and pay cuts—as well as uncertainty about how long their employment will last. “People are coming back to work in jobs that are very different than they were three months ago,” Robert Scott, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told the Washington Post‘s Tony Romm and Jacob Bogage. “They’re very risky and there’s a lot of uncertainty about what’s to come,” Scott said.
Advisory Board
June 12, 2020
“Racism generates exclusion, discrimination, oppression, exploitation in a number of ways,” Valerie Wilson, the director of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity, and the economy. “It’s not just physical violence.”
The Root
June 12, 2020
“Older workers are less likely to have the kinds of jobs that allow telework in the first place,” says Monique Morrisey, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, another D.C.think tank. “And they’re very steady and reliable; they tend to take less leave then younger workers.” For these reasons, she thinks employers should focus on bolstering workplace safety. She echoes Johnson’s call for stronger unemployment benefits for seniors until the virus plays itself out.
MarketWatch
June 12, 2020
“It’s clear that the pace of recovery is not even for all groups,” Valerie Wilson — the director of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity, and the economy — told Business Insider.
Business Insider
June 12, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute notes that corporate CEOs enjoyed record earning last year. Their average annual earnings were $17.2 million each, far exceeding any amount imaginable for a minimum wage worker. Professor Ellora Delenoncourt, an incoming economist at the University of California- Berkeley, also noted in the Wall Street Journal that blacks “headed into the crisis extremely vulnerable. Then jobs also left them more exposed to the coronavirus. Black and Latino workers have the lowest working-from-home rates and are more likely to work in industries considered essential. Inequality is a co-morbidity in the Covid-19 pandemic,” she concluded.
The Register-Herald
June 12, 2020
But the Bipartisan Policy Center’s work revealed that African Americans were more likely to lose employment as a result of the crisis — in fact, according to the Economic Policy Institute, black women suffered the largest job losses of any group. And sadly, there is much evidence to show that the traditional American antipathy toward generous social welfare benefits is rooted not in our can-do, self-help beliefs, but in our attitudes toward race.
Washington Post
June 12, 2020
Curt isn’t alone in his age cohort when it comes to lacking the ability to work from home if he chooses. According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, only 6.7 percent of workers ages 15-24 are able to telework. It’s not necessarily surprising, given the type of jobs teenagers and people in their early 20s often land. It’s dangerous for them and their families because they risk getting infected and then infecting older members of their households.
Examining the data on who can and can’t work from home paints a clear picture of who’s taking on risk and who isn’t. According to EPI, 80 percent of black workers and 84 percent of Hispanic workers can’t work from home, and high-wage workers are six times likelier to be able to work from home than low-wage workers. And those low-wage jobs often translate to fewer benefits. Recent research for the Center for Employment Equity out of the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that low-wage workers in Massachusetts have less safety gear, paid sick leave, and health insurance, and they report being less able to meet basic needs, like affording food. The patterns are consistently worse for black and Hispanic workers.
“It magnifies the inequality and disparities we had before, economic and racial inequalities,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. She warned of a “divided world” of haves and have-nots, where people who keep their jobs and work from home are better able to respond.
VOX
June 12, 2020
“Research has shown that historically higher unemployment rates, lower wages, higher poverty rates, and lower liquid savings make job losses even more devastating for African-American workers and their families,” Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote in an analysis on June 5.
Courthouse News Service
June 12, 2020
He then claims that students with and without degrees are making “identical” wages. But according to the Economic Policy Institute, college graduates earned 56 percent more than high school graduates in 2015. Moreover, college graduates earn about one million dollars more over their lifetimes than high school graduates. Even accounting for student loan debt, that is a significant difference.
The Laconia Daily Sun
June 12, 2020