“The H-1B is an important pathway to bring skilled people here,” Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, said. “But I do think that the way it’s used is one big corporate loophole. We should regulate it in a way that’s fair to both the US workers who should have a shot at applying and then the migrant workers who are coming in through no fault of their own, being underpaid and used as pawns.”
VOX
May 28, 2020
Montgomery isn’t alone. Since Covid-19 hit the United States, roughly 16.2 million workers have lost their employer-sponsored health insurance, according to an estimate published by the Economic Policy Institute. And like other impacts of the pandemic, the cost hasn’t been borne equally: Black women have been twice as likely to lose their jobs or income as white men.
The Nation
May 28, 2020
Even before COVID-19, it was never clear that workers were in short supply. If a labor shortage actually existed, wages should be rising rapidly as employers try desperately to retain or attract scarce workers. Analysis by the Pew Research Center and others shows that real wages (inflation-adjusted) have stagnated for almost all workers for decades. Research by the Economic Policy Institute and my organization have found this is especially true in unskilled and semi-skilled occupations of the kind used by H-2B employers. High levels of immigration is almost certainly one of the reasons wages have stagnated.
Washington Times
May 28, 2020
Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, said because the US had decided to rely on unemployment insurance rather than the government-backed earnings replacement schemes
favored in Europe, the extra cash was the best option. “It is the absolutely the right thing to do at a time like this,” she said.
The Guardian
May 28, 2020
In the broader workforce, black and Hispanic workers are more likely to work in lower-paid, consumer-facing service jobs that limit their ability to work remotely, according to Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute and the former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor. As several 2019 McKinsey studies noted, women, black, and brown people tend to predominantly work in service roles, which are quickly being automated. Automation, AI, robotics, and job elimination were already tied, but the pandemic has exacerbated it, with companies finding they can derive the same productivity without the overhead.
Fast Company
May 28, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think-tank, projects at least 16.2 million people were booted off their health insurance so far.
Business Insider
May 28, 2020
Trump doesn’t get much right. But he was right about Walker in 2015. The governor’s austerity agenda weakened Wisconsin—to such an extent that a 2018 Economic Policy Institute study of how Walker’s Wisconsin compared with neighboring Minnesota, which rejected austerity and invested in infrastructure, health care, and education, revealed that “outcomes for workers and families over the course of the last seven years have been markedly better in Minnesota than in Wisconsin.” The EPI study concluded that “the progress achieved in Minnesota over the past seven years is undeniable, and that progress has the fingerprints of good state policy all over it. The good news for Wisconsin is that achieving similar progress for Badger State workers and families is possible—but it will take a different policy agenda from the one the state has pursued for the past seven years.”
The Nation
May 28, 2020
On today’s What America’s Thinking, a new Hill-HarrisX poll finds a plurality of voters, 45%, say the next round of coronavirus relief spending should prioritize more relief for the unemployed. Senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, Heidi Shierholz joins Hill TV to explain how certain policies can help Americans through the economic crisis brought on by coronavirus. This survey was conducted online within the United States from May 18-19, 2020 among 932 registered voters by HarrisX. The sampling margin of error of this poll is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. The results reflect a nationally representative sample of registered voters. Results were weighted for age within gender, region, race/ethnicity, income, political party, and education where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population.
The Hill
May 28, 2020
Different decisions will affect different populations and economic sectors in varying ways. Some Illinois residents have been hit with a double whammy: they are vulnerable both to the virus itself and to the economic fallout. An analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics from the Economic Policy Institute found that African American and Latino workers are much less likely to have jobs that allow them to work from home. Under the current conditions, these individuals are bearing more risk — either to being infected while at work or to economic hardship from losing their jobs. In Illinois and across the nation, African American and Latino populations have been disproportionately affected by the virus.
WGLT
May 28, 2020