But decreasing those benefits could cost the country even more jobs on top of the historic 40 million jobs that have already been wiped away by the coronavirus pandemic, Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think-tank based in Washington, D.C., said.
“If the extra $600 unemployment benefit expires, millions of Americans will have less money to spend in stores, and that could ultimately lead to more unemployment.” — Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute
MarketWatch
May 28, 2020
More than 36 million people have filed for unemployment benefits due to the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, meaning millions will be left without health insurance. In mid May, left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute estimated 16.2 million people have lost health insurance once provided by their employer — how roughly half of Americans get their health insurance. That number could be as high as 26.8 million if those who lost their jobs don’t sign up for other coverage, the Kaiser Family Foundation found.
Huffington Post
May 28, 2020
Roughly 350 foreign workers were certified for meat and poultry gigs in 2019, according to Daniel Costa at the Economic Policy Institute. Such H-2B visa holders, capped at 66,000 annually, are commonly used in landscaping and resorts.
AP News
May 28, 2020
Together, more than a 1 million immigrants annually collectively receive those visas — about 70 percent of all guest workers in the United States, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The issue has been on Miller’s agenda for years. As a Capitol Hill staffer, he helped draft a bill that targeted the visas for students and cultural exchange workers, which according to the Economic Policy Institute statistics, now equal about 450,000 people, or 27 percent of the total number of guest workers each year.
Politico
May 28, 2020
“The H-1B is an important pathway to bring skilled people here,” Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, said. “But I do think that the way it’s used is one big corporate loophole. We should regulate it in a way that’s fair to both the US workers who should have a shot at applying and then the migrant workers who are coming in through no fault of their own, being underpaid and used as pawns.”
VOX
May 28, 2020
Montgomery isn’t alone. Since Covid-19 hit the United States, roughly 16.2 million workers have lost their employer-sponsored health insurance, according to an estimate published by the Economic Policy Institute. And like other impacts of the pandemic, the cost hasn’t been borne equally: Black women have been twice as likely to lose their jobs or income as white men.
The Nation
May 28, 2020
Even before COVID-19, it was never clear that workers were in short supply. If a labor shortage actually existed, wages should be rising rapidly as employers try desperately to retain or attract scarce workers. Analysis by the Pew Research Center and others shows that real wages (inflation-adjusted) have stagnated for almost all workers for decades. Research by the Economic Policy Institute and my organization have found this is especially true in unskilled and semi-skilled occupations of the kind used by H-2B employers. High levels of immigration is almost certainly one of the reasons wages have stagnated.
Washington Times
May 28, 2020
Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, said because the US had decided to rely on unemployment insurance rather than the government-backed earnings replacement schemes
favored in Europe, the extra cash was the best option. “It is the absolutely the right thing to do at a time like this,” she said.
The Guardian
May 28, 2020
In the broader workforce, black and Hispanic workers are more likely to work in lower-paid, consumer-facing service jobs that limit their ability to work remotely, according to Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute and the former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor. As several 2019 McKinsey studies noted, women, black, and brown people tend to predominantly work in service roles, which are quickly being automated. Automation, AI, robotics, and job elimination were already tied, but the pandemic has exacerbated it, with companies finding they can derive the same productivity without the overhead.
Fast Company
May 28, 2020