When the Economic Policy Institute looked at the effects of the Great Recession of 2008, it found that between 2005 and 2009, the median net worth of black households plummeted down 53%. For white households, on the other hand, the median net worth only declined by 17%.
Forbes
June 4, 2020
Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the progressive Economic Policy Institute and a former chief economist at the Labor Department, suggested that more government aid will be necessary to keep consumers and businesses afloat so that many laid-off workers will have jobs to return to.
“Those jobs are not going to come back if the federal government doesn’t do the things it needs to do to stimulate the economy, so that the demand and confidence is going to be there, so that those businesses will need to call workers back,” Shierholz said.
AP News
June 4, 2020
They argue the pandemic inordinately affects both the health and paychecks of African Americans, who have suffered record job losses in recent months, according to new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute think tank.
Those who have kept their jobs are often in positions that make them vulnerable to the virus, it found.
Reuters
June 4, 2020
Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the progressive Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist at the Labor Department, told the committee that nearly 1 million government jobs at the state and local level have been lost already.
Roll Call
June 3, 2020
More than half of African Americans are now jobless.
Houston Chronicle
June 3, 2020
Those disparities exist because of a long history of policies that excluded and exploited black Americans, said Valerie Wilson, director of the program on race, ethnicity and the economy at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning group.
“Racial inequality has become so normalized in this society,” she said. “It’s what we expect to see. That’s the way it’s been for so long.”
CNN
June 3, 2020
The housing conditions for black Americans also leave them more exposed to contracting coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Only 54.5% of African-American households live in single-family homes, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, compared with 74.5% of white households.
MarketWatch
June 3, 2020
Since black workers are already more likely to be unemployed than white workers, even with the same levels of education, they typically suffer disproportionately during an economic downturn, said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-of-center, labor-focused think tank. We’re already seeing evidence of that trend playing out this time around.
MarketWatch
June 3, 2020