“If we measure the strength of the labor market as the share of the population with a job, we do not have to be concerned with most of the measurement issues associated with the unemployment rate, specifically whether would-be workers are actively looking for employment or not and therefore counted amongst the ranks of the unemployed,” said Elise Gould, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
Business Insider
May 8, 2020
“At the low end, the jobs losses in April will most certainly have cancelled out all of the gains in the recovery from the Great Recession,” Elise Gould, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute, wrote in a blog post. “At the high end, we will have returned to a level of employment last experienced in the mid-1990s, canceling out all of the gains in employment over the last 25 years.”
USA Today
May 8, 2020
As many as 14 million Americans who could qualify for some type of unemployment compensation are not receiving assistance, according to a survey published April 28 by the Economic Policy Institute.
Freeman South Dakota Freeman
May 8, 2020
With unprecedented unemployment claims, nearly 13 million people have likely lost their employed-provided plans since the onset of the outbreak, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Independent
May 8, 2020
The safety net—already a dubious -patchwork—grows more tattered. In normal times, not quite a third of workers who have lost jobs receive jobless benefits. In April and May, thousands waited weeks to get through to unemployment offices, sometimes only to be told they weren’t eligible. Then there is the added expense of health care. About 12.7 million Americans have likely lost employer–provided health insurance since the pandemic began, according to the Economic Policy Institute, adding to the 27.5 million who didn’t have it before this crisis.
Time
May 8, 2020
Lydia Boussour, senior U.S. economist for Oxford Economics, expects the report to show even more job losses — 28 million. She cites an Economic Policy Institute analysis noting that as many as 14 million Americans couldn’t file jobless claims because of swamped phone and computer systems.
Yet she estimates one-third of those laid off left the labor force, pushing the participation rate below 60%, a level that hasn’t been seen in more than 50 years. If those jobless Americans had looked for work, the unemployment rate could soar to upwards of 21%.
USA Today
May 8, 2020
With stay-in-place laws and mandatory closing of most businesses, unemployment has skyrocketed. Before the pandemic it was at 3.5 percent in December 20, as of April 2020, the Economic Policy Institute has estimated that unemployment rate to be at 18.3 percent. Many economists using April’s Labor Department data predict that the unemployment rate could reach 25 percent this summer if the existing practices remain in force. That level would match the peak of the Great Depression in 1933. However, then it took three years not six months to reach that level.
Counterpunch
May 8, 2020
ZARROLI: Yeah. I mean, we are seeing fewer job losses every week. That’s a good sign. Last week, we saw 3.2 million jobs lost, which was about half of what it was at the end of March. But the numbers are still high. I talked with Elise Gould, who is a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, which is sort of a left-leaning think tank. She says we’re going to continue to bleed jobs for a while.
ELISE GOULD: I think we are not near the peak yet. I think we are still going to see additional job losses show up in the data for May, for June. Unfortunately, I don’t think this has gotten as bad as it will get yet.
NPR
May 8, 2020