According to economist Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute, if state and local government spending “had instead followed the trajectory it established following the recovery from the similarly steep recession of the early 1980s, pre-recession unemployment rates could have been achieved by early 2013 rather than 2017. In short, this austerity delayed recovery by over four years.”
Nonprofit Quarterly
June 30, 2020
That surprised some observers, who thought the Democrat’s support was assured. “I would have expected him to sign the bill with pleasure,” says Dave Cooper with the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank that supports a higher minimum wage. “I was disappointed.”
WAMU
June 30, 2020
Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, told CNN Business that “cutting off a policy support that helps households maintain spending is a terrible idea, both for these households’ welfare and for macroeconomic stabilization.” Bivens also added that he believes extending the additional $600 under the HEROES Act through the middle of next year “would provide an average quarterly boost to gross domestic product of 3.7% and employment of 5.1 million workers.”
iHeartRadio
June 29, 2020
Although some, like National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow, say the economy has “hit a turning point,” Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute correctly says the claims data “highlight the deep recession we are now in.” Shierholz notes this is “the 14th week in a row where initial unemployment claims are more than twice the worst week of the Great Recession.”
Forbes
June 29, 2020
Since the early 1980s, the total share of income claimed by the bottom 90 percent of Americans has steadily decreased, with the majority of income gains going to the top 1 percent. The Economic Policy Institute states, “Rising inequality might not be such a major concern if our education, economic, and social protection systems acted as compensatory mechanisms, helping individuals, and especially children, rise above their birth circumstances and improve their mobility. But that is hardly the case.” America’s reputation as “the land of opportunity” seems suspect, with pockets of persistent poverty — especially in communities of color.
San Diego Union Tribune
June 29, 2020
As recently as May, the Economic Policy Institute issued a report (read here), which called the program “flawed” and pointed out that 60 percent of H-1B “positions…are assigned wages well below the local median wage for the occupation.” The top 30 H-1B employers, according to EPI, include Amazon, Microsoft, Walmart, Google, Apple and Facebook. “All of them take advantage of program rules in order to legally pay many of their H-1B workers below the local median wage for the jobs they fill,” the EPI report points out. And that, as the old saying goes, is the rest of the story.
Newsweek
June 29, 2020
Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, estimated that keeping stimulus in place through the middle of next year “would provide an average quarterly boost to GDP of 3.7% and employment of 5.1 million workers,” using the Bureau of Economic Analysis data, MarketWatch’s Elisabeth Buchwald writes.
MarketWatch
June 29, 2020
Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute argued in favor of the bonus unemployment by pointing out “When the economy’s growth is demand-constrained, anything that keeps households from cutting back on spending actually supports growth,” he said. “Cutting off a policy support that helps households maintain spending is a terrible idea, both for these households’ welfare and for macroeconomic stabilization.”
Jewish Voice
June 29, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute reports that 93% of the highest-paid private-sector workers have paid sick leave and are the most likely to work remotely. In contrast, only 30% of the lowest-paid workers receive paid sick leave, and these workers are the least likely to work from home.
Santa Rosa Press Democrat
June 29, 2020
In total, that would mean that Americans would have $842 billion less to spend to pay for their own food and living expenses, according to Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
MarketWatch
June 29, 2020