The number of people who are already dealing with food insecurity, just within the domestic worker community alone is devastating — it’s at the level of a crisis,” said Julia Wolfe, the state policy analyst at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “We do believe the human cost of not including more workers in the federal relief will be devastating.
Orlando Sentinel
April 23, 2020
Joe Robinson, Frederick County Fruit Growers Association manager, noted the Trump administration exempted H-2A workers who already have visas from COVID-19 immigration restrictions last month because they are crucial to the nation’s food supply. H-2A workers comprise about 10% of the nation’s 1.18 million hired farm workers, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Economic Policy Institute.
The Winchester Star
April 23, 2020
Even with federal relief, the District could see unemployment soar above 23 percent by July, according to projections from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Maryland and Virginia could reach 14 percent unemployment by the same time. For this part of the country, that’s extremely high — even at the peak of the Great Recession, the Washington region’s joblessness rate never cracked 7 percent.
DCist
April 23, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute estimates, in the past four weeks, around 9 million Americans have likely lost their employer-sponsored health insurance. A handful of states have either expanded Medicaid or opened a special enrollment period for people to sign up for ACA coverage during the pandemic.
The Triangle Tribune
April 23, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute has also proposed a more generous plan for a fourth round of stimulus funding, including $500 billion for states, more extended unemployment insurance, another direct payment to households, and deficit-financed infrastructure investment.
“How policymakers respond now will determine the level of pain working families experience and the speed at which the economy can get back on track after the shutdown period is over. The relief and recovery packages passed since the crisis began included many good measures, but they are still too little and some provisions in these packages represent policy missteps,” EPI analysts wrote in a policy brief.
KOMO News
April 23, 2020
African Americans face a higher risk of exposure to the virus, mostly on account of their living in urban areas and being employed in essential industries. Only 20% of black workers reported being eligible to work from home, compared with about 30% of their white counterparts, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Root
April 23, 2020
A 2011 report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that a 40% increase in farmworker pay, bringing annual salaries from $10,000 to $14,000 a year, would only increase consumer spending a mere $16 a year. The author, Philip Martin, Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California-Davis, concluded, “In short, increasing farmworker wages to raise farmworkers out of poverty poses little threat to consumer pocketbooks or U.S. exports.”
Open Democracy
April 23, 2020
An inordinately high number of black workers cannot work from home, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute based on federal labor data from 2017-2018. Asian workers, followed by white workers, were most likely to be able to do their jobs remotely. Only 19.7% of black American workers said they can work from home. It might be reasonable to assume that the percentage of black workers who can work from their homes has risen today since the reality of the pandemic has forced employers to be innovative in providing ways for employees to work while abiding to the guidelines of social distancing.
The Quinnipiac Chronicle
April 23, 2020
Going forward, economists expect that the April unemployment rate will skyrocket when data is released in May. The jump in claims through April 11 would raise the unemployment rate to 15.7%, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Business Insider
April 23, 2020
En febrero las mujeres representaban el 50 por ciento de la nómina de empleados y en marzo representaban el 58.8 por ciento de los trabajos perdidos, según Economic Policy Institute, una organización sin fines de lucro con sede en Washington, que ofrece estadísticas y análisis económicos.
El Nuevo Herald
April 23, 2020