A 2017 paper from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute noted that, at that time, “87 percent of private-sector workers in the top 10 percent of wages have the ability to earn paid sick days, compared with only 27 percent of private-sector workers in the bottom 10 percent.”
Detroit Free Press
May 27, 2020
Since the middle of March, more than 630,000 people have filed for unemployment insurance. That is 30% of the state’s labor force—one of the worst rates in the nation, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute.
The Wall Street Journal
May 27, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified economic hardship in our community. Even prior to the health crisis and perhaps more today, the U.S. Economic Policy Institute named Teton County Idaho and Wyoming as the region with the largest economic inequality in the nation. With rising costs of living and over 40 percent of Teton County, Idaho working households living with less than the necessary income required to fund the five basic household necessities (housing, child care, food, transportation and health care), our local Extension office and Master Gardeners are working with nonprofit partners to tackle the issue of food access and hunger.
Teton Valley News
May 27, 2020
O’Flaherty’s model relied on homelessness data in an earlier study published by the Journal of Housing Economics in 2017, which found that every 1% increase to the unemployment rate corresponded with the homelessness rate rising by 0.65 per 10,000 people. The analysis used unemployment projections from the Economic Policy Institute, which predicted a 15.6% rate by July, and the Congressional Budget Office, which similarly projected a 16% unemployment rate by the summer.
Salon
May 27, 2020
Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said the speed of the US recovery depended on how much stimulus was put into the economy by the government.
“That is a choice,” Shierholz said. “One of the things that made the recovery from the Great Recession so bad, so weak, is that we state and local governments didn’t get the aid that they needed to not have to make substantial cuts that hamstrung the economy.”
Shierholz said the federal government could keep the same thing from happening this time by making sure unemployed people would have benefits and businesses would have help to stay afloat even if they aren’t fully open.
If the government does those things, “when the economy does reopen, there’ll be demand and confidence in the economy to get a quick bounce back,” Shierholz said.
Business Insider
May 27, 2020
We know that unemployment is sky-high, but that’s not the end of the story. The Economic Policy Institute’s Heidi Shierholz sounds a warning that, if lawmakers don’t act, we’re looking at a depression.
“If the federal government provides sufficient aid during this crisis so that people’s income doesn’t drop dramatically (even if they have been unable to work), so that businesses stay afloat (even if they have been totally or significantly shuttered), and so that state and local governments whose tax revenues are plummeting are not forced to make drastic cuts that will hamstring the economy, then those furloughed workers could get back to their prior jobs and the recovery could be rapid because confidence and demand would be relatively high,” she writes. “But if the federal government doesn’t act, then those furloughs will turn into permanent layoffs and the country will face an extended period of high unemployment that will do sweeping and unrelenting damage to the economy—and the people and businesses in it.”
Daily Kos
May 27, 2020
Though some states have laws making employers provide paid sick and family leave, FFCRA is the first-ever federal mandate. However, it leaves out a large portion of the workforce — the law doesn’t cover about 6.8 million workers at large firms who don’t get paid leave, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of DOL data.
Law 360
May 27, 2020
The Trump administration has rhetorically followed this perspective (see U.S. trade rep Robert Lighthizer declaring that the era of offshoring is over), and in some cases acting, signing a four-year agreement to source a generic pharmaceutical producer stateside. But more can be done, as the Economic Policy Institute outlines: ending the gaming of Buy America, for example, or leveraging federal contracts, or addressing currency manipulation, or reversing tax incentives for offshoring.
The American Prospect
May 27, 2020
Groups supporting the Paycheck Recovery Act include Americans for Financial Reform; the American Federation of Teachers; AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka; Asian Counseling and Referral Service; Asian Pacific Islander Coalition of Washington; Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO; CAIR Washington; Center for American Progress; Center for Economic Policy Research; Center for Popular Democracy/CDP Action; Climate Justice Alliance; Color of Change; Communications Workers of America; Community Change Action; the Congressional Hispanic Caucus; Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition; Economic Policy Institute; GSBA: Washington’s LGBTQ Chamber; Indivisible; International Association of Machinists; International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers; International Community Health Services; Main Street Alliance; MoveOn; National Domestic Workers Alliance; National Education Association; Pacific Northwest Ballet; People’s Action; Seattle Aquarium; Seattle Children’s Theatre; SEIU; Sierra Club; UAW Western States; UNITE HERE; Woodland Park Zoo; 350 Seattle; and other organizations.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal
May 27, 2020