According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a nonpartisan think tank, H-2A workers are already underpaid compared to other workers.
“In 2019, the average wage of all nonsupervisory farmworkers was $13.99 per hour, according to USDA, while the average wage for all workers in 2019 was $26.53 per hour, meaning the farmworker wage was just 53% of the average for all workers,” read an EPI post. “And the average wage for production and nonsupervisory nonfarm workers—the most logical cohort for workers outside of agriculture to compare with farmworkers—was $23.51.
Cal Matters
April 20, 2020
America is experiencing the largest increase in unemployment in history. But why are so many Americans paying the price for the COVID-19 pandemic?
AJ+
April 20, 2020
According to the Economic Policy Institute, only 16% of Latino workers reported being able to work remotely.
The Guardian
April 20, 2020
Travel restrictions and reduction in officials processing visas could reduce the number of farmworkers by as many as 60,000, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
WABE
April 20, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, estimates that 9.2 million U.S. residents were at high risk of having lost coverage during the past four weeks. The consulting firm Health Management Associates forecasts that perhaps 12 million to 35 million people will lose job-based insurance because of the pandemic, on top of the 27.5 million who were uninsured before the virus arrived.
The Washington Post
April 20, 2020
Ten years ago, Ron Hira in his Economic Policy Institute article, wrote that the H-1B visa and its L-1 cousin were “out of control.” Hira, a respected Howard University public policy professor, wrote that both of these visa programs need “immediate and substantial overhaul.” The original goals of the H-1B and L visa were to admit foreign nationals who complement the U.S. workforce. Instead, wrote Hira, “Loopholes in both programs have made it too easy to bring in cheaper foreign workers, with ordinary skills, who directly substitute for, rather than complement, workers already in the country. They are clearly displacing and denying opportunities to U.S. workers.”
Norfolk Daily News
April 20, 2020
“What we are going through is traumatic on every level,” said Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. “We will minimize that trauma by following what public health experts want us to do.”
The variability falls in line with calculations from both George Mason University and the Economic Policy Institute that show how economic turmoil and recovery vary state to state and county to county. Local economies with higher numbers of digital jobs are less rattled than parts of the country with bustling service and hospitality industries.
Courthouse News Service
April 20, 2020
“We will keep fighting to help every aspect of the gaming industry as Congress and the administration consider additional economic relief measures,” the AGA said. It is thought that around 200,000 casino workers in Vegas have been affected by the city’s shutdown so far. According to data collected by the Economic Policy Institute, the unemployment rate in Nevada could rise to around the 20 percent mark as a result of the coronavirus crisis.
Card Player
April 20, 2020
High rates of homelessness, housing insecurity and food insecurity impact the extent to which people can safely engage in social distancing measures. At the same time, a disproportionately high share of black and Hispanic workers are in jobs where they cannot telecommute, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute.
“You layer those other social barriers on top of health care, it really sets up folks to be at a disadvantage,” Cooper said.
The Hill
April 20, 2020
“For awhile, we are going to be in territory that was just unthinkable,” Heidi Shierholz,a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told Business Insider. In comparison to the Great Recession, the current situation is a much more rapid deterioration, she said.
For example, the worst weekly jobless claims report during the Great Recession showed fewer than 1 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance — now, the US is seeing sustained weeks of millions of claims. “We’re just in this extraordinary space,” Shierholz said.
Business Insider
April 20, 2020