Since March 7, when COVID-19-related job losses began being reported in Washington, 397,845 coronavirus-related claims were filed and 345,804 coronavirus emergency unemployment claims were filed, according to ESD data. The numbers, including the potentially fraudulent claims, total more than double the number predicted by the Economic Policy Institute in early March.
The EPI projected that more than 300,000 Washingtonians could lose their jobs by June due to economic impacts created by Gov. Jay Inslee’s executive order closing businesses he deemed nonessential.
The Center Square
June 1, 2020
OSHA has faced criticism during the pandemic for not being more responsive to worker concerns. That may drive health care workers to take other legal routes when facing retaliation, says Terri Gerstein, a labor attorney who directs the State and Local Enforcement Project at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program. Gerstein is also a senior fellow at the Economic Policy Institute.
“It’s so important that employers understand that when people raise these kinds of safety concerns, it’s not an adversarial thing,” she says. “They are trying to make their workplace safer and stem the spread of this horrible disease.”
NPR
June 1, 2020
One of the most commonly cited statistics about savings is the Federal Reserve’s annual survey looking at how many Americans can cover an unexpected $400 expense with cash or savings. In 2018, 39 percent of those surveyed didn’t even have that modest sum handy — a decline from 50 percent in 2013. Hence, individuals drawing down their 401(k)s. “People don’t plan around a steep decline in income,” says Monique Morrissey, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank in Washington.
Governing
June 1, 2020
As governor, Mr. Walker decimated funding for public schools and colleges, cut health care, and tried to destroy unions in favor of big tax cuts for the rich and corporations. An Economic Policy Institute study found that states like Wisconsin that followed this strategy delayed their recovery from the Great Recession by four years.
The New York Times
June 1, 2020
A report in early May from the Economic Policy Institute found that 60% of H-1B positions are paid lower than the local median wage for that job. Top users are Amazon, Microsoft, Walmart, Google, Apple and Facebook, EPI said.
The Washington Times
June 1, 2020
People of color are more likely to live in densely populated areas and work frontline jobs—as public transportation operators, grocery store employees and warehouse distribution workers, for example. And according to the Economic Policy Institute, only 16 percent of Hispanic workers and about 20 percent of black workers can telework, compared to 37 percent of Asian and 30 percent of white Americans.
Share Care
June 1, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute graft, below, shows how government policies reduced economic inequality after the Roaring Twenties, but how inequality increased after the 1970s.
Daily Kos
June 1, 2020
Infant child care costs Wisconsin families more than $1,000 a month on average, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Yet early childhood teachers make an average of $10.33 an hourin the state, despite being more educated on average than the typical Wisconsin worker.
Wisconsin Public Radio
June 1, 2020
A coronavirus delay might be a lucky break for U.S. workers. The Economic Policy Institute is apprehensive that the U.S. International Trade Commission’s projections about higher U.S. wages and increased employment may be based, much like NAFTA, on “questionable assumptions.”
Specifically, EPI doubts whether U.S. wages will rise as a direct result of improved labor rights enforcement in Mexico, a conclusion that the ITE model doesn’t validate.
Noozhawk
June 1, 2020