“It’s starting to seem like the new normal,” said Julia Wolfe, an analyst at the Economic Policy Institute. “But I think it’s important to ground ourselves in that this is still a huge shock to a lot of workers and their families and also represents a huge strain on the unemployment insurance system.”
Cronkite News
May 5, 2020
“All else equal, job loss of the magnitude reflected in the UI claims of the last six weeks would translate into an unemployment rate of 20.5 [percent],” the Economic Policy Institute’s Heidi Shierholz wrote in reaction to the figure. But, she notes, “in good times and bad,” the white unemployment rate is about 0.9 times the overall unemployment rate, while the black unemployment rate tends to be 1.8 times the overall unemployment rate. “That means that an overall unemployment rate of 20.5 [percent] would translate into a white unemployment rate of 18.4 [percent] and a black unemployment rate of 36.8 [percent],” she writes.
Politico
May 5, 2020
Teacher shortages are a more severe problem in high-poverty areas with lower pay, according to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
Spartan Newsroom
May 5, 2020
“Congress has the power to protect ordinary workers during this public health and economic crisis,” Thea Lee, president of the Economic Policy Institute, said.
Nation of Change
May 5, 2020
24/7 Wall St. created an index of the pandemic’s ongoing impact on each state’s economy, taking into account the number of COVID-19 cases per 10,000 residents, the share of employment in industries deemed high risk by Moody’s, new unemployment claims since mid-March and projected unemployment rates by state for July 2020 from the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank.
24/7 Wall St.
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