Media clips

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• Workers without college degree hit hardest by record unemployment

  Average hourly earnings spiked by $1.34 to $30.01, but this shouldn’t be interpreted as a silver lining, warned Economic Policy Institute senior economist Elise Gould. “While workers across the economy lost their jobs in April, many of the job losses were concentrated in lower-wage jobs. Therefore, stronger wage growth in April reflects the dropping of lower-wage jobs from the total,” she said.

  NBC News May 11, 2020
• How to find a pandemic-proof job during the coronavirus outbreak if you’ve been laid off or furloughed

  “The industries that are most subject to these sways are lower wage jobs,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

  With so many people out of work, the prospect of finding a good-paying job isn’t straightforward. “It’s not like the safer, more recession-proof jobs pay less,” Gould said. “They’re already the jobs that were in higher demand before all of this happened.”

  MarketWatch May 11, 2020
• Latinos have nation’s highest unemployment rate, and in Connecticut it could be extreme

  According to the Economic Policy Institute and state data, Connecticut’s unemployment rate in the last quarter of 2019 averaged 3.8 percent. For non-Hispanic whites it was 2.7 percent and for the state’s Latinos it was 5.8 percent, putting Connecticut among those with the highest rate of Hispanic unemployment behind Pennsylvania, Arizona and Washington state.

  Nationally, African-American workers had the highest unemployment rate 5.7%, followed by Hispanic workers at 4.1%, white workers (at 3%), and Asian workers (at 2.7%), EPI said.

  The CT Mirror May 11, 2020
• Pandemic inflicts historic U.S. job losses, as states struggle to reopen

  Adding to the pain, millions of Americans who have lost their jobs have been unable to register for unemployment benefits. A survey released last week by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that up to 13.9 million people have been shut out of the unemployment benefits system.

  Reuters May 11, 2020
• Employment during COVID-19 by the numbers

  Experts predict 20 million layoffs by July

  Nearly 20 million more workers in the U.S. could be laid off or furloughed by midsummer, according to estimates released April 1, 2020, by the Economic Policy Institute. It expects the largest percentages of job losses to occur in Nevada, Alaska, and Hawaii.

  Only 71% of unemployed workers receive benefits

  Outdated unemployment insurance systems in some states collapsed from the influx of applicants who lost their job during the pandemic. As a result, only 71% of applicants received benefits by April 11, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  NBC 2 May 11, 2020
• 10 takeaways from the worst jobs report in US history

  Heidi Shierholz, the former chief economist for the Labor Department, noted on that 6.4 million people who were out of work in April didn’t look for a job and so weren’t even counted as unemployed. Include them and the unemployment rate jumps to roughly 19%, she tweeted.

  An additional 7.5 million workers appear to have been mistakenly classified as “employed, not at work” when they were actually jobless last month and should have been counted as unemployed, said Shierholz, who now works at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. Add them into the mix and the unemployment rate screeches up to 23.6% — not far below the all-time unemployment peak of roughly 25% from 1933.

  Associated Press May 11, 2020
• April Was The Worst Month For Jobs Since The Great Depression—Here’s What The Numbers Tell Us About Recovery

  And government numbers themselves don’t always tell the full story. Even though total claims have declined from week to week, for example, the unemployment situation is likely more dire than the data reflects. A study two weeks ago from the Economic Policy Institute found that for every ten people who successfully filed an unemployment claim over the last month, another three to four people attempted to make a claim but were unable to get through states’ overburdened systems.

  Forbes May 11, 2020
• Economists Break Down U.S. Unemployment Numbers

  What do the latest unemployment rates mean for the U.S. economy? NPR’s Noel King speaks with Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute and Claudia Goldin of Harvard University.

  NOEL KING, HOST:

  The news from the Labor Department this morning is staggering – 20.5 million jobs, that’s how much the U.S. lost last month. The unemployment rate is now at 14.7%. By way of comparison, in February, the unemployment rate in this country was about 3.5%. This is the worst it’s been since 1940. What does this mean as we move forward, and can we learn anything from the past? With me now to help answer that, Heidi Shierholz, who’s an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, and Claudia Goldin, who’s an economic historian and a professor of economics at Harvard. Good morning to you both.

  NPR May 11, 2020
• Historic layoffs take biggest toll on Blacks, Latinos, women and the young

  “It certainly is the case that we were finally seeing the recovery from the Great Recession hit more and more people,” says Elise Gould, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute. “Historically disadvantaged groups were finally beginning to see lower unemployment rates.”

  USA Today May 11, 2020
• US unemployment surges to a Depression-era level of 14.7%

  Counting them as unemployed would push the rate up further, to almost 24%, according to calculations by economist Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute.

  AP News May 11, 2020