The exact number is likely a little harder to get at. The Economic Policy Institute’s Heidi Shierholz calculated that 37.2 million workers are either actually on unemployment benefits or applied very recently. That figure is based on the number of people DOL reported who are seeking another week of claims (and thus made it through the first round of processing) and also counts workers seeking aid under the temporary Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which includes people not typically eligible for unemployment benefits, like gig workers. “Together, that is close to one in four people in the U.S. workforce,” Shierholz writes.
Politico
June 5, 2020
Current CDC recommendations to decrease the risks of contracting coronavirus are to stay home and practice social distancing. However, not everyone has the privilege to abide by those guidelines. A report by the Economic Policy Institute based on federal labor data shows Black and Hispanic workers are less likely to be able to work from home.
Beyond Type 1
June 5, 2020
TODAY’S EDUCATION JOB LOSSES ECLIPSE THOSE DURING THE GREAT RECESSION, Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute concluded in a new blog post that lays out some troubling numbers for schools.
— “More K–12 public education jobs were lost in April than in all of the Great Recession,” she wrote. “And that’s before any austerity measures from lost state and local revenue have been put in place.”
— Half of the job losses in K–12 public education between March and April were among special education teachers, tutors and teaching assistants, Gould said. Other significant job losses occurred among counselors, nurses, janitors, and other building maintenance workers.
— Looking ahead: “April’s job losses are huge in and of themselves, but it’s an even bigger problem that additional public education job losses have probably already occurred — we will find out more details when the May jobs data comes out this Friday,” Gould wrote.
Politico
June 5, 2020
If there isn’t more federal aid in the coming weeks and months, the United States could be headed for a prolonged depression due to the COVID-19 crisis. Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, says almost all the forecasts for the next 18 months show unemployment would remain over 10% by the end of 2021.
KIRO Radio
June 5, 2020
At 20.8%, the black poverty rate is 2.5 times the white rate. The wealth gap between blacks and whites has also worsened. In 2016 the net worth of white families, at $171,000, was almost 10 times greater than that of the typical black household. The Economic Policy Institute reports that between 2000 and 2018 the gap between black and white incomes worsened at every level.
The Wall Street Journal
June 5, 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
Even without a global pandemic, J-1 visitors can have a hard time finding help, said Daniel Costa of the Economic Policy Institute and co-author of a 2019 report on a J-1 summer work-and-travel program for college students.
ProPublica
June 5, 2020
The economic fallout from the pandemic has exacerbated inequalities in the U.S. Minority groups such as black Americans are among the most exposed to unemployment through mass layoffs in the hospitality and manufacturing industries, according to the Economic Policy Institute. They are also overrepresented in front-line jobs where exposure to infection is high, and tend to live in denser, multi-generation communities where the spread of the coronavirus has been fiercer, according to EPI. Underlying health and economic conditions all contribute to increased vulnerability during the pandemic. Black Americans make up just over 12% of the U.S. population but account for 22.4% of Covid-19 deaths, EPI said.
The Wall Street Journal
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
As the economic fallout from the coronavirus continues, the Labor Department released its latest figures on Thursday showing that 1.9 million people filed for jobless benefits last week. According to the Economic Policy Institute, “Close to one in four workers are either on unemployment benefits or are waiting to receive them.” Meanwhile thousands of workers whose jobs were reinstated are caught between risking their health in an unsafe work environment or losing a paycheck. In many states, employers are simply firing their workers and reporting them to authorities so that they lose their unemployment benefits.
Rising Up with Sonali
June 5, 2020