“Racism generates exclusion, discrimination, oppression, exploitation in a number of ways,” Valerie Wilson, a director at the Economic Policy Institute, told Business Insider.
Business Insider
June 10, 2020
“Many of the advocacy workers on these issues see the guest workers as being even worse off and more indentured,” said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute. That’s because H-2A workers are completely dependent on the individual employers who sponsor them. If they lose their job—if they’re fired for complaining about working conditions or become too sick to work—they can be forced to leave the country immediately. Terrified of losing the chance to support their families, they’re unlikely to speak up about abuses.
The Appeal
June 10, 2020
As reported by CBS News, some economists appear to be aligned with Yang’s approach. Paul Ashworth, the chief U.S. economist at independent research firm Capital Economics, expressed support for such a stimulus to help increase consumer spending and generate economic growth. Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, echoed Ashworth and pushed for “rapid direct payments to individuals.”
Inquisitr
June 10, 2020
An estimated 300,000 to 400,000 people in tech are working on H-1B visas, said Daniel Costa, a director at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C. Highly skilled immigrants, hailing from dozens of countries and in particular India and China, can use the visas to stay in the country for six years.
The Information
June 5, 2020
Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity and the economy. (@ValerieRWilson)
Economic Policy Institute: “Black workers face two of the most lethal preexisting conditions for coronavirus—racism and economic inequality” — ““We’re all in this together” has become a rallying cry during the coronavirus pandemic. While it is true that COVID-19 has affected everyone in some way, the magnitude and nature of the impact has been anything but universal. Evidence to date suggests that black and Hispanic workers face much more economic and health insecurity from COVID-19 than white workers.”
WBUR
June 5, 2020
A new report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) states that racial and economic inequality have made Black workers, who comprise about 12 percent of the workforce, most vulnerable to the coronavirus. As of April, less than half of the adult Black population was employed. Many of those African Americans who were working are part of the army of low-paid essential workers, risking their lives for a paycheck. (Black women and Latinas are the backbone of this army.) And they are more likely to be uninsured, so they do not get medical care until they fall severely ill.
The Center for Public Integrity
June 5, 2020
Valerie Wilson at the Economic Policy Institute says those are most likely professional, office-type jobs.
“Given occupational segregation, African Americans are less likely to be in those higher-paid occupations,” Wilson said. “That in large part accounts for the disparity in the share of African American workers able to work remotely during this time.”
She also says Black households are more likely to have just a single wage-earner to depend on.
“When you lose your job, all of the resources available to that household go,” Wilson said. “It’s unlikely anyone who loses a job now will be able to quickly find another one.”
Marketplace
June 5, 2020
Black workers suffer from a phenomenon academics call “first fired, last hired.” Black workers are more often than not terminated before white workers, because the population works in industries more susceptible to economic woes. Fewer than 20 percent of black workers were able to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to 30 percent of white workers, according to a March study by the Economic Policy Institute.
Crain's Detroit Business
June 5, 2020
Elise Gould, senior economist at the nonprofit think tank Economic Policy Institute, said the upswing was likely due to most states lifting stay-at-home orders.
“While these are welcome gains (as long as the health consequences aren’t offsetting), jobs losses since February still total 19.6 million, and are currently 13% below its February level,” she wrote. (Parentheses in original.)
She cautioned that the “economic pain will be long-standing” without further relief to workers, families and state and local governments.
“Even with the mild improvement in May, the unemployment rate of all groups is still higher than the highest level the overall unemployment rate hit at the height of the Great Recession, when it reached 10.0% in 2009,” Gould said.
Courthouse News Service
June 5, 2020