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
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
Investopedia
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
“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
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
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
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
“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
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