“None of what we’re seeing should come as a surprise,” says Valerie Wilson, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a think-tank which recently published a report on the impact of the virus on African-Americans. “If you’ve been alert and attentive to these inequalities over the generations, you can almost predict how any crisis is going to play out.”
Financial Times
June 10, 2020
Two reports from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute published in back-to-back years found “no evidence at all” of labor shortages in the top H-2B occupations. And in its editorial, the pro-immigration New York Times concluded that labor shortage claims don’t stand up. The Times, applying Econ 101 basics, wrote that when labor is scarce, unemployment falls, and wages rise. The Times noted that H-2B workers are subject to exploitation and unemployment “is high in the major H-2B fields, which include landscaping, groundskeeping, construction, hospitality and seafood processing, while wages in those fields have long been flat or declining.”
Korea Times
June 10, 2020
VOX
June 10, 2020
McDonald’s did not bother to note in the video that for years, it paid lobbyists millions of dollars to combat the push for a $15 federal minimum wage. Lower wages are at the heart of the systemic oppression McDonald’s notes in the ad. Currently, there is a 30% pay gap between white and Black workers across the U.S, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Ad Week
June 10, 2020
“Racism generates exclusion, discrimination, oppression, exploitation in a number of ways,” Valerie Wilson, a director at the Economic Policy Institute, told Business Insider.
Business Insider
June 10, 2020
“Many of the advocacy workers on these issues see the guest workers as being even worse off and more indentured,” said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute. That’s because H-2A workers are completely dependent on the individual employers who sponsor them. If they lose their job—if they’re fired for complaining about working conditions or become too sick to work—they can be forced to leave the country immediately. Terrified of losing the chance to support their families, they’re unlikely to speak up about abuses.
The Appeal
June 10, 2020
As reported by CBS News, some economists appear to be aligned with Yang’s approach. Paul Ashworth, the chief U.S. economist at independent research firm Capital Economics, expressed support for such a stimulus to help increase consumer spending and generate economic growth. Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, echoed Ashworth and pushed for “rapid direct payments to individuals.”
Inquisitr
June 10, 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
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