A survey by the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute estimated that 12 million people had tried and failed to claim unemployment insurance, or didn’t even try because it seemed difficult. That would swell the true number of unemployed people close to 40 million, said Elise Gould, an economist at the institute.
“The official numbers underestimate the amount of economic devastation that’s happening,” Gould said. The official total was 28 million jobless claims as of last week. Millions more were still waiting to file claims, she said.
States need more help to process claims and provide emergency help like food, she said, and the federal government needs to provide more money to states, because states are generally bound by balanced-budget rules.
“These people are having trouble paying the May rent, the mortgage and all their bills,” Gould said. “States need to be providing additional aid, but because of balanced-budget amendments they’ll have to cut their budgets, which is the last thing we need.”
Pew Charitable Trust
May 5, 2020
New research from the Economic Policy Institute reveals that the number of Americans who are losing their employer-based health insurance is growing rapidly, with more than 30 million people laid off or furloughed in the last six weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic.
EPI estimates that 12.7 million of the people who have lost their jobs since early March have lost their health insurance.
“The linkage between specific jobs and the availability of health insurance is a prime source of inefficiency and inequity in the U.S. health system,” wrote EPI research director Josh Bivens and economist Ben Zipperer. “It is especially terrifying for workers to lose their health insurance as a result of, and during, an ongoing pandemic.”
EPI released its new research shortly after government watchdog Public Citizen tweeted sarcastically that the U.S. has a “normal and fine healthcare system,” sharing a news story about health insurer Cigna’s skyrocketing profits for the first months of 2020 alongside EPI’s earlier headline from just two weeks ago when the think tank estimated 9.2 million Americans had lost their employer-based health insurance.
Nation of Change
May 5, 2020
As of Friday, more than 30 million people have reportedly filed for unemployment in the last six weeks, according to CNET. That number could be even higher, after a survey from the Economic Policy Institute estimated that roughly 14 million additional people would have filed for unemployment if the process was easier. While there has been a spike in layoffs and furloughs, which has led to a backlog of applications, there are apps to help make the process slightly easier for those in need.
Pop Culture
May 5, 2020
Third, supporters argue that socialism would greatly reduce the stark inequalities of income that we find in capitalist countries like the United States, where CEOs are compensated at up to 278 times the rate of average workers, as one recent Economic Policy Institute study found. In the Mondragón cooperatives in Spain, which are owned and controlled by their workers, the ratio between highest- and lowest-paid is closer to 5:1.
Teen Vogue
May 5, 2020
Throughout the pandemic, Black and Hispanic workers have been less likely than workers of any other race or ethnicity to be able to work from home, according to the Economic Policy Institute, in part because the former are overrepresented in jobs the government has deemed essential.
The Huffington Post
May 5, 2020
The number of unemployed people could be even higher than the numbers reflect. Research by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that from March 15 to April 18, another 8.9 to 13.9 million more people would have applied for unemployment if the process had been easier or if labor agency phone lines and websites had not been perpetually tied up. It’s unclear how many of those millions have managed since April 18 to successfully apply for benefits.
Next City
May 5, 2020
Heidi Shierholz, former chief economist at the Labor Department, said she sees the current frustrations as the continuation of a 40-year-trend of workers losing bargaining power. She said many were right to feel underpaid before the pandemic began; now the risk makes their earnings feel like an insult.
“We had an extremely unbalanced system before, where the growth of the economy has been captured largely by the people at the top, and not broadly shared, for decades,” said Shierholz, now the policy director at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “Policymakers should absolutely be stepping in and making sure these workers have hazard pay.”
The Huffington Post
May 5, 2020