The wealth gap has an obvious racial tilt, but there’s great economic disparity no matter how you look at it. “Upper income” families—which had a median net worth of $810,800, according to a 2017 Pew study—were the only tier able to build wealth from 2007 to 2016, adding 10% to their median net worth. Middle-income families—$110,100 in median net worth—lost 33% of their wealth. Access to retirement savings plays a role; high-income families are seven times more likely to have retirement account savings as low-income families, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Barron’s
June 22, 2020
There are an estimated 10.5 million members of the workforce over the age of 65, but many of them hold down jobs that can’t be performed remotely. In fact, almost 80% of workers 65 and over can’t telecommute, reports the Economic Policy Institute. By comparison, the same holds true for only 60% of those between the ages of 35 and 44.
The Motley Fool
June 22, 2020
Any recent manufacturing gains were abruptly wiped out by the COVID-19 lockdown — with a staggering 1.2 million manufacturing jobs lost this year. If Trump wants to take credit for an economic boom after a decade of recovery from the Great Recession, then he must also own this collapse, thanks to his administration’s mismanagement of the pandemic, including its refusal to organize an effective national response.
The Hill
June 22, 2020
Jhacova Williams (Race and Inequality) is an economist for the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy (PREE). In this capacity, she explores the role of structural racism in shaping racial economic disparities in labor markets, housing, criminal justice, higher education, and other areas that have a direct impact on economic outcomes. Williams’s research has focused on Southern culture and the extent to which historical events continue to impact the political behavior and economic outcomes of Southern Blacks.
Valerie Wilson (Labor Economics) is the director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy (PREE), a nationally recognized source for expert reports and policy analyses on the economic condition of America’s people of color. Prior to joining EPI, Wilson was an economist and vice president of research at the National Urban League Washington Bureau. She has written extensively on various issues impacting economic inequality in the United States—including employment and training, income and wealth disparities, access to higher education, and social insurance.
Fortune
June 22, 2020
It was the 13th-straight week that filings topped 1 million. Until the present crisis, the most new claims in a single week had been 695,000, in 1982.
“It’s still more than twice the worst week of the [the last recession],” said Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank. “It’s a sustained hemorrhaging of jobs unlike anything we’ve seen before.”
Arkansas Democrat Gazette
June 22, 2020
Older workers are less likely than younger ones to have jobs that can be done remotely, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. Almost 8 in 10 workers over 65 can’t telecommute, compared with about 6 in 10 between 35 to 44, the analysis found.
USA Today
June 22, 2020
Black-owned businesses were more likely to be in industries hit hard by coronavirus-related restrictions, such as retail and hospitality, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, a labor-oriented think tank.
And when some relief finally came in the form of PPP loans for small businesses, Black business owners faced hurdles in getting approval, according to the EPI study. A major hurdle was the lack of preexisting relationships with the larger banks that were first to administer the loans, the study said.
LA Times
June 22, 2020
As we know the economy has been hammered by the COVID-19 shutdowns. Robert Scott is Senior Economist at the Economic Policy Institute, and he says things could get even worse before they get better.
Richard French Live
June 22, 2020
Most students are taught about the Jim Crow-era efforts to keep schools separate and unequal, but fewer probably know contemporary education shows levels of segregation not seen since before the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v Board of Education decision. For example, a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute found that black children are five times as likely as white children to attend racially and ethnically segregated schools and twice as likely to attend “high-poverty” schools.
The Washington Post
June 22, 2020
The median wealth of a white family is nearly 12 times that of a Black family, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
NBC News
June 22, 2020