Media clips

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• Calls grow for the Federal Reserve to target lowering the black unemployment rate

  Analysts at the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Popular Democracy have also backed the push for the Fed to look more closely at black unemployment.

  The Washington Post June 11, 2020
• Behind virus and protests: A chronic US economic racial gap

  The income gap remains wide even though African Americans have vastly upgraded their educational attainment: The proportion of black Americans with a high school diploma has surged from 54% in 1968 to 92% in 2018. The share with a college degree rose from 9% to 23% over that period, according to government figures compiled by the Economic Policy Institute.

  AP News June 11, 2020
• Companies are making bold promises about greater diversity, but there’s a long way to go

  But statistics also show the lack of progress among the corporate workforce. According to data from human resources consulting company Mercer, 64% of workers in entry level positions are white. In the top executive ranks, however, 85% of positions are held by whites, demonstrating the promotion gap that minorities face. And women and minorities continue to under-earn white male colleagues, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  Despite decades of pushing for wage equality, women and minorities still fall short of the pay of their white male colleagues, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  “The data show not only rising inequality through the 2000s, but also the persistence — and in some cases worsening — of wage gaps by gender and race,” senior economist Elise Gould wrote in “State of Working America Wages 2019.” “At every decile, wage growth since 2000 was faster for white and Hispanic workers than for black workers.”

  CNBC June 11, 2020
• Coronavirus, Which Already Hit African Americans The Hardest, Also Eliminated Black Job Gains

  Valerie Wilson, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, told the WSJ that many public sector institutions like schools and city governments — which are large employers of African Americans — cut thousands of jobs. “Job losses due to the pandemic were fairly evenly distributed across racial groups,” said Wilson. “In just one month, you’ve seen the recovery will not be.”

  BET June 11, 2020
• Economists Warn It Is Too Soon To Call Off Federal Aid

  SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Friday’s jobs report was a welcomed surprise for many observers. But encouraging as it is to see some people going back to work, the report also triggered alarm bells. Elise Gould of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute worries lawmakers might see those 2 1/2 million jobs added in May and forget about the 19 million other jobs that were lost in March and April.

  NPR June 11, 2020
• Idahoans enduring great economic loss in the time of coronavirus

  At the national level, the coronavirus crisis hit Latinos harder than any other racial or ethnic group. The unemployment rate for Latinos rose from 4.4 percent in February to 18.9 percent in April. Only 16 percent of Latinos were in jobs that allowed them to work from home, compared to 31.4 percent of non-Latinos, a March study by the Economic Policy Institute found. From March 14 through May 23, 12,446 Latinos who live and work in Idaho filed new unemployment claims.

  The Economic Policy Institute estimated that coronavirus-caused layoffs resulted in 12.7 million Americans losing their employer-provided health care insurance by April 30 and that about 52,300 Idahoans lost theirs.

  Clearwater Tribune June 11, 2020
• It’s time for a Black New Deal

  Then consider the kind of professions Black people work in. The nonprofit, nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute notes that Black workers are more likely than those of other races to be in front-line job sectors: grocery, convenience and drugstores, public transit, trucking, warehousing, postal services, janitorial services, child care, social services, and, of course, health care workers—what we’re now calling “essential services.”

  Nation of Change June 11, 2020
• McDonald’s #BlackLivesMatters Ad Was Shortsighted and Hollow

  McDonald’s did not bother to note in the video that for years, it paid lobbyists millions of dollars to combat the push for a $15 federal minimum wage. Lower wages are at the heart of the systemic oppression McDonald’s notes in the ad. Currently, there is a 30% pay gap between white and Black workers across the U.S, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  Ad Week June 11, 2020
• New EPI Study Examines How Racism & Economic Inequality Hurt Black Workers During COVID-19 Pandemic

  There’s been significant discussion about systemic racism since Floyd’s death, but new research from our friends at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) illustrates how racism has also meant Black workers have been disproportionally impacted by the pandemic.

  EPI’s Elise Gould and Valerie Wilson find that “racial disparities in health status, access to health care, wealth, employment, wages, housing, income, and poverty all contribute to greater susceptibility to the virus—both economically and physically.”

  Black workers make up one in nine workers overall, about 11.9 percent of the workforce, EPI reports. But Black workers account for one in six “front-line-industry workers,” including 26 percent of public transit workers, 18.2 percent of trucking, warehouse, and postal service jobs, 19.3 percent of childcare and social service workers, and 14.2 percent of grocery, convenience, and drug store workers.

  Alliance for American Manufacturing June 11, 2020
• New unemployment claims decline, but economists project long, slow recovery from outbreak

  “Policymakers need to do much, much more to fight this recession and set our economy up for a strong recovery, which will not happen without intervention,” said Heidi Shierholz, a former Department of Labor economist who now serves as director of policy for the Economic Policy Institute, in a statement Thursday, estimating that about 25% of the American workforce is now either on unemployment benefits or waiting to receive them.

  KCBY 11 News June 11, 2020