About 21.5 million Americans were still collecting unemployment benefits, known as continuing claims, for the week ending May 23, according to the Labor Department. But an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute finds that looking at all unemployment programs, 37.2 million people are either receiving benefits or have applied for benefits and waiting to hear if they will receive them. That’s nearly a quarter of the American workforce.
CBS News
June 5, 2020
According to a 2018 Economic Policy Institute report, “The share of African Americans in prison or jail almost tripled between 1968 and 2016 and is currently more than six times the white incarceration rate.”
90.3 WPLN News
June 5, 2020
A report by the Economic Policy Institute noted that black workers are also more likely to be on the front lines of the economy, working essential jobs.
Yahoo Finance
June 5, 2020
Investopedia
June 5, 2020
While Rothstein’s book is described as a “forgotten history” of how the U.S. government segregated America. The author is a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute as well as a Fellow at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
WWD
June 5, 2020
“As of April, less than half of the adult black population was employed. While the economic devastation is widespread… black workers are less able to weather such a storm because they have fewer earners in their families, lower incomes, and lower liquid wealth than white workers,” according to recent Economic Policy Institute research analyzing the Current Population Survey for April 2020. The report found that “white women experienced the largest increase in unemployment, while black women now have the highest unemployment rate,” resulting in black women suffering the largest job losses of any group.
“Black women experienced a drop in their [employment-to-population ratio] of 11 percentage points. Put another way, 18.8% of black women workers lost their jobs between February and April,” the EPI found.
S&P Global
June 5, 2020
“The pandemic and related job losses have been especially devastating for black households,” the Economic Policy Institute said in a recent report. “They have historically suffered from higher unemployment rates, lower wages, lower incomes, and much less savings to fall back on, as well as significantly higher poverty rates than their white counterparts.”
“It certainly is the case that we were finally seeing the recovery from the Great Recession hit more and more people,” says Elise Gould, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute. “Historically disadvantaged groups were finally beginning to see lower unemployment rates.”
USA Today
June 5, 2020
Workers in the U.S. filed 1.9 million new unemployment claims last week, according to the Department of Labor. An additional 623,000 individuals filed under the temporary Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program for those who can’t claim traditional unemployment benefits. In April, when the coronavirus hammered employment in the U.S., job losses for white Americans amounted to 15.5%, while black job losses totaled 17.8%, according to Economic Policy Institute research.
S&P Global
June 5, 2020
“Institutional racism and historical discrimination have meant that Black workers have fared worse in the labor market, even in good times,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the progressive Economic Policy Institute who co-authored a report this week looking at the devastating toll COVID-19 has taken on Black workers.
“When we have a severe economic downturn like we’re having right now, it disproportionately disadvantages Black workers,” she added. “They’re the ones more likely to lose their jobs, but they’re also the ones less able to weather the storm.”
The Huffington Post
June 5, 2020
“With that, today we welcome to this virtual hearing the following witnesses: Mr. Thomas Quaadman, Executive Vice President, U.S. Chamber, Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness; Dr. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President, American Action Forum; and Dr. Heidi Shierholz, Senior Economist and Director of Policy, Economic Policy Institute.
United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
June 5, 2020