Media clips
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A watchdog group called the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has found that for the first time since World War II, the federal government’s debt will exceed the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). The Committee’s president conceded that, “combating this public health crisis and preventing the economy from falling into a depression will require a tremendous amount of resources – and if ever there were a time to borrow those resources from the future, it is now.” However a non-partisan Congressional group called the Joint Committee on Taxation concluded that as part of the $2.2 trillion economic stimulus package that just passed, Senate Republicans snuck in a tax relief plan that exclusively benefits millionaires – to the tune of $90 billion tax dollars this year alone. Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said, “It’s a scandal for Republicans to loot American taxpayers in the midst of an economic and human tragedy.” Meanwhile a coalition of 180 groups led by the Economic Policy Institute on Monday sent a letter to Congress demanding it pass a $500 billion fund to provide immediate relief to state, local, territorial, and tribal governments.
Rising Up with Sonali April 15, 2020 -
April 15, 2020
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If national trends hold true in North Carolina, about 20% of newly unemployed individuals fit into one of those categories, according to an April 2 report from the Economic Policy Institute.
Winston-Salem Journal April 15, 2020 -
Even as Northam brags about signing strong civil rights measures this session, he ignores the civil rights element to the pro-labor bills he’s “postponed”: that women and people of color are most likely to be public employees, and most likely to be minimum-wage workers. The Economic Policy Institute recently reported that public-sector employees in Virginia are mostly female (57.5 percent), and that the share of black workers (20.9 percent) is higher than in the private sector (17.9 percent). “Women and people of color make up the majority of our workforce generally, and are most likely to be our ‘essential’ personnel” [in the pandemic], says Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy. The state’s Legislative Black Caucus also asked Northam to sign the pro-labor bills, but despite the fact that the group essentially saved his political career after his blackface scandal, he didn’t listen.
The Nation April 15, 2020 -
Also real is the economic emergency that workers, families and small businesses face. At some point, Washingtonians will get to the other side of the COVID-19 crisis and begin a long economic recovery. Already, economists are attempting to forecast the national economic picture for the months to come. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects a 12 percent unemployment rate by the end of June, dropping only to nine percent by the end of 2021. The Economic Policy Institute projects an unemployment rate around 15 percent by the end of June for the country and Washington state. January’s unemployment rate of 3.6 percent seems like a dream.
South Whidbey Record April 15, 2020 -
The Economic Policy Institute projects that people of color will be the majority working class — working people without a college degree — by 2032. And while not everyone wants to go to college, poor reading scores can cause shame, and cut short aspirations for those who do.
Colorado Springs Independent April 15, 2020 -
The proposal drew support from Josh Bivens, research director for the Economic Policy Institute.
Common Dreams April 15, 2020 -
According to Economic Policy Institute, the U.S. unemployment rate may hit 16% by July, which is higher than any point since the Great Depression.
KCRA April 15, 2020 -
These projections incorporate the effects of the large rise in unemployment. The Economic Policy Institute, for example, projects a loss of 20 million jobs by the summer. That would translate to an unemployment rate of 15.6 percent by summer, up from 3.5 percent in February and 4.4 percent in March.[20] The Congressional Budget Office projects an unemployment rate of 12 percent by the third quarter (July to September) that stays high into 2022.[21] Goldman Sachs also projects an unemployment peak of 15 percent by the third quarter (July to September) but warns that there will likely also be many additional people who want a job but are not actively looking because of the lack of available jobs (they must be actively looking to be officially classified as unemployed).[22] In the 2001 recession, the unemployment rate rose only 1.8 points, to 5.8 percent; in the Great Recession it hit 9.8 percent, a rise of 4.8 points.
[20] David Cooper and Julia Wolfe, “Nearly 20 million workers will likely be laid off or furloughed by July,” Economic Policy Institute, April 1, 2020, https://www.epi.org/blog/nearly-20-million-jobs-lost-by-july-due-to-the-coronavirus/.
[35] Sylvia A. Allegretto and Lawrence Mishel, “The teacher pay gap is wider than ever: Teachers’ pay continues to fall further behind pay of comparable workers,” Economic Policy Institute, August 9, 2016, https://www.epi.org/files/pdf/110964.pdf.
[37] Emma García and Elaine Weiss, “The teacher shortage is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought,” Economic Policy Institute, March 26, 2019, https://www.epi.org/files/pdf/163651.pdf.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities April 15, 2020 -
According to the Economic Policy Institute, 90 percent of the highest-earning private-sector workers are more likely to work from home and have access to paid sick leave, but seven in ten low-wage workers do not get paid sick leave. Nearly one-quarter of all workers–including two of three food service and one in three retail workers–receive no paid sick leave whatsoever. Only 25 percent of private-sector workers receive at least ten paid sick days annually after twenty years’ service.
Beyond Chron April 15, 2020