Media clips

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• Post-Recession Job Growth Wiped Out

  Heidi Schierholz, former Chief Economist at the US Department of Labor and Senior Economist and Policy Director with the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) said, “For comparison, in the period before the coronavirus hit, just over a million workers would apply for UI in a typical five-week span, and in the worst five-week stretch of the Great Recession, it was less than four million. In the last five weeks, it was more than 24 million.”

  Urban Milwaukee May 8, 2020
• EPI: H-1B visas and prevailing wage levels

  Daniel Costa and Ron Hira have released a new report for the Economic Policy Institute: H-1B visas and prevailing wage levels.

  Here are key takeaways the two authors identify:

  • DOL lets H-1B employers undercut local wages. Sixty percent of H-1B positions certified by the U.S. Department of Labor are assigned wage levels well below the local median wage for the occupation. While H-1B program rules allow this, DOL has the authority to change it—but hasn’t.
  • A small number of employers dominate the program. While over 53,000 employers used the H-1B program in 2019, the top 30 H-1B employers accounted for more than one in four of all 389,000 H-1B petitions approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2019.
  • Outsourcing firms make heavy use of the H-1B program. Half of the top 30 H-1B employers use an outsourcing business model to provide staff for third-party clients, rather than employing H-1B workers directly to fill a special need at the company that applies for the visa.
  • Major U.S. firms use the H-1B program to pay low wages. Among the top 30 H-1B employers are major U.S. firms including Amazon, Microsoft, Walmart, Google, Apple, and Facebook. All of them take advantage of program rules in order to legally pay many of their H-1B workers below the local median wage for the jobs they fill.
  ImmigrationProf Blog May 8, 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.

  NPR May 8, 2020
• Nevada, Hawaii are among the states most likely to feel the economic hit by COVID-19

  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.

  As is the case with its neighbor to the south, Virginia, Maryland’s economy is not especially exposed to slowdown in the wake of COVID-19. A relatively small share of workers in the state, 15.7%, are employed in industries that are projected to bear the brunt of the economic fallout. According to estimates by the Economic Policy Institute, Maryland’s unemployment rate in July will be just 13.9%, the lowest of any state according to projections.

  Methodology

  To determine the states most likely to be hurt by COVID-19, 24/7 Wall St. created a weighted index of four measures. The first measure, which comprises 30% of the index, is the share of total employment in industries deemed to be at high-risk of slowdown due to the coronavirus outbreak. The second measure, which comprises 20% of the index, is the number of diagnosed cases per capita as of April 27 2020. The third measure, which comprises 30% of the index, is the number of new unemployment claims made since the week ending March 21 as a share of the 2018 state labor force, from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The fourth measure, which comprises 20% of the index, is the projected unemployment rate by state for July 2020 from a report published on April 1 by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank.

  USA Today May 8, 2020
• Even as Iowa reopens, unemployment claims continue to reach record levels

  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.

  The Hawk Eye May 8, 2020
• US unemployment spikes to a Depression-era level of 14.7%

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

  Associated Press May 8, 2020
• The Government Is Ready to Reopen. Its Citizens Aren’t, Polls Show.

  Researchers at the Economic Policy Institute used a nonscientific survey to estimate that in addition to those already on the unemployment rolls, eight to 12 million people could have applied for joblessness benefits since the start of the pandemic but did not. Most of those people, the study determined, reported that they had sought to file for unemployment but had been unable to make it through the application; others simply did not make an attempt.

  The implications of such staggering job losses carry over into other facets of life, including health care access and food security. According to a separate analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, as of last week nearly 13 million people had lost access to employer-provided health care.

  The New York Times May 8, 2020
• Essential, and No Longer Disposable

  Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told me that the spotlight on these essential industries has only crystallized what the long-term labor-market projections have already made clear: Relying solely on improving skills to improve living standards is a flawed strategy because forecasts show that the share of jobs requiring advanced education won’t be much larger in the future than it is now.

  The Atlantic May 8, 2020
• As Hospitals Lose Revenue, More Than A Million Health Care Workers Lose Jobs

  The Economic Policy Institute estimates that nearly 13 million Americans have likely lost their employer-sponsored health insurance so far.

  NPR May 8, 2020
• What Systemic Changes Are Needed Now That Millions In The US Are Newly Uninsured?

  Almost 13 million people have lost their health insurance after losing their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Advocates say the majority of people can’t afford insurance alternatives. What options are available and what systemic changes are needed?

  KALW May 8, 2020