Media clips

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• How to Apply for a Small Business Loan in Colorado

  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
• Make a big impact: Support small

  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
• Massive layoffs and pay cuts are likely coming to state and local governments as federal aid goes elsewhere

  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
• Not Safe at Home: How a Meat-Packing Plant Became a Top COVID-19 Hotspot

  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
• Pandemic’s economic toll just starting to show for both nation, church

  The May jobs report, due May 8, will take into account all that has happened with jobs and the economy into mid-April, said Elise Gould, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute. It also will show which sectors of the economy were hit hardest, as well as the demographic groups affected most severely by the pandemic-related economic stall.

  Figures from Washington state, the first epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, while themselves preliminary, give a clue to what the rest of the nation could expect. Three job categories suffered month-to-month double-digit job losses: accommodation and food services, 16.5%; arts, entertainment and recreation, 11.3%; and “other services” outside of public administration, 10.9%.

  The $2 trillion stimulus package hammered out by Congress and signed into law by Trump in late March is “not stimulus so much as relief and recovery,” Gould said. “What we need to do right now is ease people’s pain … ease people’s pain from these job losses.”

  She added, “People are losing their job and they’re not going to be able to put food on the table, this CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security) Act, what it does, it expands unemployment insurance so that more people can get it for a more expansive number of reasons related to COVID-19.” Gould said more action will need to be taken in Washington to get the country through and past the pandemic.

  The Boston Pilot April 23, 2020
• Publix is buying excess milk and produce from farmers — and donating it to food banks

  The need for supplies in food banks around the country has surged, as millions of people are now out of work due to coronavirus. More than 22 million Americans are estimated to have filed unemployment applications since the pandemic began — with many still waiting for their first payment, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of unemployment claims data from the U.S. Department of Labor.

  CBS News April 23, 2020
• ‘Recession-Proof’ No More: Washington’s White-Collar Economy Isn’t Safe From Coronavirus

  Even with federal relief, the District could see unemployment soar above 23% by July, according to projections from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Maryland and Virginia could reach 14% 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%.

  WAMU 88.5 April 23, 2020
• The Juggle of Working Motherhood, Trapped at Home

  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than one-third of working women, compared with just 15.7 percent of working men, are employed in two industries that have been significantly affected by the virus: the health care and social assistance industry and the leisure and hospitality industry. In both fields, women are paid less than their male peers, according to research by the Economic Policy Institute.

  The New York Times April 22, 2020
• The Next Public Health Crisis: Mass Unemployment

  The sudden unemployment crisis exposes a key deficit in the U.S. health care system: the fact that, for 165 million Americans, their access to medical care depends on their jobs. Indeed, updating the Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) estimates, 8.8 million Americans have lost their employer-sponsored coverage in the past four weeks.

  Scientific American April 22, 2020
• The H-1B Visa Issue Explained

  Prominent companies such as Walt Disney (DIS) and Southern California Edison have been accused of replacing American workers with cheaper foreign labor. A New York Times report showed that outsourcing companies were “gaming the visa system.” A study from the Economic Policy Institute showed that H-1B workers were underpaid at Indian IT firms providing outsourcing services in the U.S. for American companies. These companies saved more than $20,000 a year per worker when they hired Indians instead of Americans. The Migration Policy Institute found that the top H-1B dependent companies, or those whose workforce consists of at least 15% H-1B visa holders, meet the criteria to avoid extra scrutiny via the loophole “but still pay their H-1B workers less and employ fewer workers with advanced degrees than those that are not H-1B-dependent.”

  Investopedia April 22, 2020