The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found in an online poll that for every 10 people who have successfully filed unemployment claims, three or four people have been unable to register and another two people have not tried to apply at a time of acute economic crisis.
EPI’s survey indicates that an additional 8.9 million to 13.9 million people have been shut out of the system, said Ben Zipperer, the study’s lead author.
“This study validates the anecdotes and news reports we’re seeing about people having trouble filing for benefits they need and deserve,” Zipperer said.
Reuters
May 1, 2020
“I think it is forcing people to make a tough choice,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “It certainly doesn’t feel like it was the intention of the CARES Act to put workers in that difficult position of choosing between their health and their economic wellbeing.”
WJLA
May 1, 2020
The Labor Department doesn’t release jobless claims by industry. So, building on the work of economist Ben Zipperer and his colleagues at the Economic Policy Institute, we analyzed industry-specific new unemployment-benefit claims from 14 states that publish them. (For a full list, see the charts below.)
The Washington Times
May 1, 2020
Guest: Heidi Shierholz, Director of Policy, Economic Policy Institute, Former Chief Economist, US Department of Labor
More than 24 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits since mid-March. That’s 20 times the number of people who were applying for unemployment before the pandemic hit. If every man, woman and child living in the state of Florida filed for unemployment over the last month, you still wouldn’t reach that 24 million number. And it’s getting bigger. Where is all the money to pay those unemployment benefits coming from – and how long will it last?
BYU Radio
May 1, 2020
Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, says Graham is just plain wrong about how unemployment benefits work.
“You can’t just quit your job and get unemployment benefits,” Shierholz said during a Wednesday phone interview. She noted that during this crisis, workers can get unemployment insurance if they are forced to stop working to care for a sick family member or take care of a child who’s school has closed, but they cannot just quit their jobs for no reason and receive benefits.
Shierholz said 16% of Americans will likely be unemployed after July 31. Cutting off all additional benefits at such a time is “cruel and will lead to an enormous amount of human suffering and it’s bad economics,” she said, adding that unemployment insurance “is a really really good way to get money into the economy.”
The American Independent
May 1, 2020
Now, Congress has passed several economic aid packages, most importantly a big boost to unemployment insurance and a bailout for small businesses. Yet state unemployment systems are so janky (sometimes deliberately so to keep taxes on business down) that perhaps half of people eligible for benefits have not received them, per a recent survey from the Economic Policy Institute. And the small business grant program has already run out of money twice; the recent allocation of $350 billion ran out in minutes.
The Week
May 1, 2020
But a survey released on Tuesday by the progressive think tank The Economic Policy Institute showed that millions of Americans who have lost their jobs during the pandemic have been unable to file for unemployment benefits as the systems around the US buckle under the sheer volume of new claims.
Al Jazeera News
May 1, 2020
Some people can’t get through: According to survey data released Tuesday by the Economic Policy Institute, for every 10 people who filed for unemployment benefits from mid-March to mid-April, three to four were unable to get through to their state systems, and another two didn’t try because they thought it was too difficult to do so. The survey results suggest that in addition to the 21.5 million people who filed for benefits during the four-week period from March 22 to April 18, another 7.8 to 12.2 million people would have applied had they been able to do so.
“These findings imply the official count of unemployment insurance claims likely drastically understates the extent of employment reductions and the need for economic relief during the coronavirus crisis,” the study’s authors wrote.
The Fiscal Times
May 1, 2020
Filings continue at a high pace as the government has expanded the list of those eligible for benefits and amid continued difficulties at state offices for claims filers. The Economic Policy Institute earlier this week estimated that the current claims level probably undercounts by as much as 12 million those who are eligible for benefits but not getting them due to the inability to file or other roadblocks.
CNBC
April 30, 2020
A key reason for that emerges from a survey by the Economic Policy Institute. It found that up to 12 million more people have lost jobs but haven’t filed a claim for benefits, either because they couldn’t get through their state’s overwhelmed system or they didn’t try, perhaps because it was too difficult.
“These findings imply the official count of unemployment insurance claims likely drastically understates the extent of employment reductions,” wrote Ben Zipperer and Elise Gould, economists at EPI.
Associated Press
April 30, 2020