Media clips

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• Restructuring Argentina’s Private Debt is Essential

  NEW YORK – The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed humanity toward the worst global recession in modern times. Pressure on public finances has become enormous, particularly in developing countries that were already highly indebted.

  We believe a sustainable agreement benefits both sides: a struggling economy with 45 million people and the creditors themselves. Now is the time for private creditors to act in good faith. A responsible resolution will set a positive precedent, not only for Argentina, but for the international financial system as a whole.

  This commentary is co-signed by: Jeffrey D. Sachs, Columbia University; Dani Rodrik, Harvard Kennedy School; Thomas Piketty, School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences; Mariana Mazzucato, University College London; Kenneth Rogoff, former IMF chief economist and Harvard University; Brad Setser, Council on Foreign Relations; Ricardo Hausmann, former IADB Chief Economist and Harvard Kennedy School; Carlos Ominami, former Economy Minister, Chile; Yu Yongding, former member of the Monetary Policy Committee, People’s Bank of China; Erik Berglof, former EBRD chief economist and London School of Economics; Nora Lustig, Tulane University; Nelson Barbosa, former Minister of Finance and Planning; Justin Yifu Lin, former World Bank chief economist and Peking University; Partha Dasgupta, University of Cambridge; Kevin P. Gallagher, Boston University; Stephany Griffith-Jones, Columbia University; Stephanie Blankenburg, UNCTAD; Richard Kozul-Wright, UNCTAD; Ricardo French Davis, University of Chile; James K. Galbraith, University of Texas; Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Sciences Po; Amar Bhattacharya, Brookings Institution; Robert Boyer, National Scientific Research Council; Robert Pollin, University of Massachusetts-Amherst; Robert Howse, NYU Law; Giovanni Dosi, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna; Juan Carlos Moreno Brid, National Autonomous University of Mexico; Josh Bivens, Economic Policy Institute; Arjun Jayadev, Azim Premji University; David Soskice, London School of Economics; Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Mauro Gallegati, Università Politecnica Delle Marche; Natalya Naqvi, London School of Economics; Daniela Gabor, UWE Bristol; Marcus Miller, University of Warwick; John E. Roemer, Yale University; William H. Janeway, University of Cambridge; Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research and University of Utah; Gerald Epstein, University of Massachusetts-Amherst; Anwar Shaikh, New School University; Kaushik Basu, Cornell University; Matias Vernengo, Bucknell University; Philippe Aghion, London School of Economics; Anne Laure Delatte, Centre d’Etudes Prospectives et d’Informations Internationales; Sudhir Anand, London School of Economics; Christoph Trebesch, University of Kiel; John Weeks, University of London; David Vines, University of Oxford; Saskia Sassen, Columbia University; Sandra Polaski, Boston University; Thomas Pogge, Yale University; Rhys Jenkins, University of East Anglia; Jurgen Kaiser, Jubilee Germany; Gary A. Dymski, University of Leeds; Andreas Antoniades, University of Sussex; Raphael Kaplinsky, University of Sussex; Diane Elson, University of Essex; Ernst Stetter, former secretary general, Foundation for European Progressive Studies; Ozlem Onaran, University of Greenwich; Todd Howland, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; Isabel Ortiz, Columbia University; Carolina Alves, University of Cambridge; Eric LeCompte, Jubilee USA Network; Richard Jolly, University of Sussex; Christoph Trebesch, University of Kiel; Diego Sanchez-Ancochea, University of Oxford; Mark Weisbrot, Center for Economic and Policy Research; Lara Merling, International Trade Union Confederation; Pedro Mendes Loureiro, University of Cambridge; Ilene Grabel, University of Denver; Sabri Öncü, CAFRAL; David Hall, University of Greenwich; Jose Esteban Castro, Newcastle University; Andy McKay, University of Sussex; Stefano Prato, Society for International Development; Rosemary Thorp, University of Oxford; Barry Herman, The New School for Public Engagement; Andrés Arauz, former Minister of Knowledge and Central Bank General Director, Ecuador; Manuel Alcántara, University of Salamanca; Alex Izurieta, UNCTAD; Michael Cichon, UNU Maastricht; Biswajit Dhar, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Jens Martens, Global Policy Forum; Nicolas Pons-Vignon, University of the Witwatersrand; Jean Saldanha, European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad); Leonidas Vatikiotis, Debtfree Project; Valpy FitzGerald, University of Oxford; Giovanni Andrea Cornia, University of Florence; Matthias Thiemann, Sciences Po; Yılmaz Akyüz, former chief economist, South Centre, Geneva; Stephan Schulmeister, University of Vienna; Eduardo Strachman, São Paulo State University; Peter Dorman, Evergreen State College; C.P. Chandrasekhar, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Leopoldo Rodriguez, Portland State University; Chris Tilly, University of California Los Angeles; Tracy Mott, University of Denver; Jeffrey Madrick, Schwartz Rediscovering Government Initiative; Günseli Berik, University of Utah; Joseph Ricciardi, Babson College; Lorenzo Pellegrini, Erasmus University Rotterdam; Erinc Yeldan, Bilkent University; Sunil Ashra, Management Development Institute; Mustafa Özer, Anadolu University, Turkey; Rolph van der Hoeven, Erasmus University Rotterdam; Al Campbell, University of Utah; Antonella Palumbo, Università Roma Tre; Arthur MacEwan, University of Massachusetts Boston; Neva Goodwin, Tufts University; Korkut Boratav, Turkish Social Science Association; Michael Ash, University of Massachusetts-Amherst; Alicia Puyana, Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Mexico; John Willoughby, American University; Marco Palacios, El Colegio de Mexico; Reza Mazhari, Gonbad Gavous University, Iran; Ann Markusen, University of Minnesota; Renee Prendergast, Queens University; Michael Moore, University of Warwick; Carlos A. Carrasco, Universidad de Monterrey, Mexico; Robert Lynch, Washington College; John Schmitt, Economic Policy Institute; Venkatesh Athreya, Bharathidasan University; Jeff Faux, Economic Policy Institute; Kunibert Raffer, University of Vienna; Jenik Radon, Columbia University; Maria Joao Rodrigues, Foundation for European Progressive Studies; Stephanie Seguino, University of Vermont; Gustavo Indart, University of Toronto; Cyrus Bina, University of Minnesota; Alberto Minujin, The New School; Philip Alston, NYU; Sudhir Anand, London School of Economics; José Gabriel Palma, Cambridge University; Michael A. Cohen, The New School; Jeff Powell, University of Greenwich; Christopher Sims, Nobel laureate in economics and Princeton University; and Rob Johnson, President, INET.  

  Project Syndicate May 7, 2020
• The H-1B Visa Program is Government-Sanctioned Exploitation of American Workers

  Even in a normal job market, it is hard to fathom the Department of Labor (DOL) would “let H-1B employers undercut” over qualified American applicants so they can insource foreign workers, who they pay at below-market wage levels. Yet, that is exactly what is occurring, according to a new report from the non-partisan Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

  Immigration Reform May 7, 2020
• The US would have 350,000 deaths before July if all states reopened today, according to new analysis

  “We want to do whatever we can to help states and localities get through that period – and not clamp down on the recovery,” Elise Gould, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, previously told Business Insider.

  “People are under the false impression that there’s this dichotomy between protecting people’s health and protecting people’s economic wellbeing,” Gould added. “That’s where policymakers really need to step up more.”
  Business Insider May 7, 2020
• What is Medicaid, and how do you get it?

  More than 50 percent of Americans receive their health insurance through their employer; a recent analysis by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute forecast that 3.5 million workers had lost their insurance in the last two weeks of March alone.

  FOX 26 News May 7, 2020
• Trump Still Wants to Kill Obamacare, Pandemic Be Damned

  Support for the ACA is sure to only increase in the face of the coronavirus, which has rendered the ACA and its individual health care marketplace more important than ever. On top of the 11.4 million Americans who already had ACA insurance in 2020 and 12.5 million enrolled in Medicaid expansion, the Economic Policy Institute estimated April 30 that approximately 12.7 million workers have so far lost their employer-based health insurance since the beginning of the pandemic alone. And those numbers could just be the tip of the iceberg, with the Urban Institute projecting that 25 million workers or more could ultimately lose their employer insurance due to unemployment caused by the COVID-19 crisis. Many of those workers are now likely to turn to ACA insurance or Medicaid, which was expanded under the ACA, potentially adding tens of millions to the number of Americans who would be affected by the Supreme Court’s decision. (The Trump administration, for its part, hasn’t done anything to help laid-off workers get health coverage more easily, refusing to call a special enrollment period for ACA insurance amid the coronavirus.)

  Vanity Fair May 7, 2020
• DHS Set to Welcome Many Indian H-1B Visa Workers Back to U.S.

  The Indian workers allow investors and executives to expand stock values by shrinking payrolls for U.S. graduates. Most of the H-1B contract-workers are paid less than American graduates, according to a May report by the Economic Policy Institute.

  Breitbart May 7, 2020
• GIANT HOSPITAL CORPORATION TAKES ADVANTAGE OF CORONAVIRUS TO FIGHT NURSES’ UNION DRIVE

  “[Nurses] really are organizing to have a voice over life and death issues,” said Logan. Speaking generally of anti-union campaigns in the health care space, Logan said, “Hospital administrators still think that it’s appropriate to bring in outside consulting firms that cost millions of dollars.” Hospital anti-union campaigns can cost well over $1 million, a report from the Economic Policy Institute found last year.

  The Intercept May 7, 2020
• Hispanics are almost twice as likely as whites to have lost their jobs amid pandemic, poll finds

  Economists predict that the picture will grow even more dire Friday when the Department of Labor releases the first jobs report covering an entire month of shutdowns. Economists expect to see unemployment rates of 16 percent and record job losses of more than 20 million, said Heidi Shierholz, policy director at the Economic Policy Institute.

  The Washington Post May 7, 2020
• Hollywood CEOs “Sacrifice” Base Pay, Yet Keep Big Bonuses

  While it’s impossible to ignore the vast disparity between what top execs are paid compared with the average employee — as much as 278 times more, according to a 2019 Economic Policy Institute report — Hollywood business manager Evan Bell cautions against assuming that the huge gulf means top execs won’t be hurt financially by forgoing salaries. “Some CEOs have lifestyles where they might have a lot of assets, but they need their cash flow,” he says. “It’s not only optics to everyone, but to some people it is.”

  The Hollywood Reporter May 7, 2020
• Breakingviews – Critical workers hold keys to higher minimum pay

  As in the UK and elsewhere, home health aides are financially forgotten – and heavily exposed to Covid-19. They make less than retail workers on average, says the BLS, as do drivers for services like Uber, according to Economic Policy Institute estimates. Bus drivers and postal workers get closer to the national average. Journalists, loan officers and morticians are among the luckier ones with above-average pay.

  Reuters May 7, 2020