New research from the Economic Policy Institute reveals that the number of Americans who are losing their employer-based health insurance is growing rapidly, with more than 30 million people laid off or furloughed in the last six weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic.
EPI estimates that 12.7 million of the people who have lost their jobs since early March have lost their health insurance.
“The linkage between specific jobs and the availability of health insurance is a prime source of inefficiency and inequity in the U.S. health system,” wrote EPI research director Josh Bivens and economist Ben Zipperer. “It is especially terrifying for workers to lose their health insurance as a result of, and during, an ongoing pandemic.”
EPI released its new research shortly after government watchdog Public Citizen tweeted sarcastically that the U.S. has a “normal and fine healthcare system,” sharing a news story about health insurer Cigna’s skyrocketing profits for the first months of 2020 alongside EPI’s earlier headline from just two weeks ago when the think tank estimated 9.2 million Americans had lost their employer-based health insurance.
Nation of Change
May 5, 2020
A survey by the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute estimated that 12 million people had tried and failed to claim unemployment insurance, or didn’t even try because it seemed difficult. That would swell the true number of unemployed people close to 40 million, said Elise Gould, an economist at the institute.
“The official numbers underestimate the amount of economic devastation that’s happening,” Gould said. The official total was 28 million jobless claims as of last week. Millions more were still waiting to file claims, she said.
States need more help to process claims and provide emergency help like food, she said, and the federal government needs to provide more money to states, because states are generally bound by balanced-budget rules.
“These people are having trouble paying the May rent, the mortgage and all their bills,” Gould said. “States need to be providing additional aid, but because of balanced-budget amendments they’ll have to cut their budgets, which is the last thing we need.”
Pew Charitable Trust
May 5, 2020
The third installment of the Reilly Center’s Communications & COVID-19 virtual event series, An Unequal Relationship: Race and COVID-19, will investigate the racial disparities accompanying the COVID-19 outbreak. Louisiana Budget Project’s Director of Public Affairs and Outreach Davante Lewis will lead the conversation.The complete list of panelists features:
- Davante Lewis, Director of Public Affairs and Outreach, Louisiana Budget Project, Moderator
- Jarvis DeBerry, Former Deputy Opinions Editor, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
- Rebekah Gee, M.D., MPH, CEO Health Care Services, LSU Health
- Denese Shervington M.D., MPH, Humanistic Integrative Psychiatry, President and CEO, Institute of Women and Ethnic Studies, UNO Research and Technology Foundation, Inc.
- Jenny Sullivan, Director of Housing and Health Integration, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
- Jhacova Williams, Ph.D., Economist for Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy (PREE)
Registration for An Unequal Relationship: Race and COVID-19 and each of the events in the Communications & COVID-19 series can be found online. Registrants will receive a Zoom meeting link and information on how to join. The events will also be recorded and uploaded to the Manship School’s YouTube channel.
Louisiana State University Manship School of Communication
May 5, 2020
“That means many workers who lose their job as a result of the virus will be counted as dropping out of the labor force instead of as unemployed,” said Heidi Shierholz, a former chief economist at the Labor Department, and now head of policy at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
Reuters
May 5, 2020
“It’s starting to seem like the new normal,” said Julia Wolfe, an analyst at the Economic Policy Institute. “But I think it’s important to ground ourselves in that this is still a huge shock to a lot of workers and their families and also represents a huge strain on the unemployment insurance system.”
Cronkite News
May 5, 2020
“All else equal, job loss of the magnitude reflected in the UI claims of the last six weeks would translate into an unemployment rate of 20.5 [percent],” the Economic Policy Institute’s Heidi Shierholz wrote in reaction to the figure. But, she notes, “in good times and bad,” the white unemployment rate is about 0.9 times the overall unemployment rate, while the black unemployment rate tends to be 1.8 times the overall unemployment rate. “That means that an overall unemployment rate of 20.5 [percent] would translate into a white unemployment rate of 18.4 [percent] and a black unemployment rate of 36.8 [percent],” she writes.
Politico
May 5, 2020
Teacher shortages are a more severe problem in high-poverty areas with lower pay, according to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
Spartan Newsroom
May 5, 2020
“Congress has the power to protect ordinary workers during this public health and economic crisis,” Thea Lee, president of the Economic Policy Institute, said.
Nation of Change
May 5, 2020
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.
24/7 Wall St.
May 5, 2020