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
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
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
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
As noted by Josh Bivens and Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, “The aid starts as loans, but if the money is used to preserve jobs and maintain wages of employees over the crisis, then the loans can be forgiven — potentially keeping tens of millions of small business employees on the payroll”. As the terms, amounts, and intended purposes vary by loan, it’s important to check which program will be most suitable for your needs before beginning the application process.
Money Inc
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
A New York Times article points out that most small businesses have only 15 to 30 days of cash on-hand. As a likely result (according to a CNBC report from late last month), “the disruption to businesses from coronavirus could lead to 15,000 permanent retail store closures in 2020, with the Economic Policy Institute predicting that the disease outbreak could potentially wipe out three million jobs from the U.S. economy before this summer.”
CUInsight
April 23, 2020
Roughly 20 million people work in the public sector at the state and local level, which is more than the number employed in the hard-hit retail industry. The last time the public sector faced such steep budget cuts was during the Great Recession a decade ago. State and local governments shed 627,000 jobs in the three years following the downturn, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC
April 23, 2020
While many act as if everyone these days is “working at home,” this is hardly the case. Back in February 2020, about 158.7 million workers in the US had jobs. Two months later, with 22 million losing their jobs, about 136.5 million remain employed, over a third of whom—48.7 million—are deemed “essential workers.” By definition, these people are not working from home. And, as many, such as the Economic Policy Institute, have noted, these “essential” jobs are not evenly distributed, as people of color and lower-income earners hold an outsized share of these positions.
Nonprofit Quarterly
April 23, 2020