Media clips
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NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks to Valerie Wilson from the Economic Policy Institute about why the pandemic has disproportionately affected African-American workers and families.
The coronavirus pandemic has pushed unemployment to its highest level in the U.S. since the Great Depression. Last week, another 1.87 million people filed for unemployment. That brings the total claims this spring to over 42 million. And it has disproportionately affected black workers and families. Valerie Wilson of the Economic Policy Institute says, in a recent report, that this is because of historic and ongoing social and economic injustices. And she joins us now. Welcome.
NPR June 5, 2020 -
Elise Gould, senior economist at the nonprofit think tank Economic Policy Institute, said the upswing was likely due to most states lifting stay-at-home orders.
“While these are welcome gains (as long as the health consequences aren’t offsetting), jobs losses since February still total 19.6 million, and are currently 13% below its February level,” she wrote. (Parentheses in original.)
She cautioned that the “economic pain will be long-standing” without further relief to workers, families and state and local governments.
“Even with the mild improvement in May, the unemployment rate of all groups is still higher than the highest level the overall unemployment rate hit at the height of the Great Recession, when it reached 10.0% in 2009,” Gould said.
Courthouse News Service June 5, 2020 -
The exact number is likely a little harder to get at. The Economic Policy Institute’s Heidi Shierholz calculated that 37.2 million workers are either actually on unemployment benefits or applied very recently. That figure is based on the number of people DOL reported who are seeking another week of claims (and thus made it through the first round of processing) and also counts workers seeking aid under the temporary Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which includes people not typically eligible for unemployment benefits, like gig workers. “Together, that is close to one in four people in the U.S. workforce,” Shierholz writes.
Politico June 5, 2020 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Even without a global pandemic, J-1 visitors can have a hard time finding help, said Daniel Costa of the Economic Policy Institute and co-author of a 2019 report on a J-1 summer work-and-travel program for college students.
ProPublica June 5, 2020 -
As the economic fallout from the coronavirus continues, the Labor Department released its latest figures on Thursday showing that 1.9 million people filed for jobless benefits last week. According to the Economic Policy Institute, “Close to one in four workers are either on unemployment benefits or are waiting to receive them.” Meanwhile thousands of workers whose jobs were reinstated are caught between risking their health in an unsafe work environment or losing a paycheck. In many states, employers are simply firing their workers and reporting them to authorities so that they lose their unemployment benefits.
Rising Up with Sonali June 5, 2020