Media clips

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• Enrollment Deadline For Health Insurance Through Colorado’s Marketplace Is Thursday

  CBS4 talked with Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit tracking labor and the economy.

  “If you don’t have health insurance, your only course to get care is to go to the emergency room, that’s expensive, and in many cases that’s not the kind of the care that you need, or that you could have avoided had you had regular access to doctors, and emergency room care is footed by somebody by customers of the existing health insurance system, or it’s going to be funded by our tax dollars depending on how hospitals make their revenue,” Zipperer said.

  CBS News May 1, 2020
• Despite Warnings About Potential Harm To Black People And Latinos, Texas Will Reopen

  Throughout the pandemic, Black and Hispanic workers have been less likely than workers of any other race or ethnicity to be able to work from home, according to the Economic Policy Institute, in part because the former are overrepresented in jobs the government has deemed essential.

  The Huffington Post May 1, 2020
• “We Need a Working People’s Bailout”: Unemployment Claims Hit 30 Million as Many Struggle to Afford Necessities

  “The next package should [include] $500 billion in aid to state and local governments, protect workers’ paychecks, include worker safety and health protections, and invest in our democracy,” wrote Shierholz.

  Shierholz suggested that the federal government use one solution to help solve both the crisis of unemployment and that of the spreading pandemic by establishing a large-scale contact-tracing program to detect how the coronavirus is being transmitted and to whom:

  We must also make significant investments in testing and contract tracing because, absent a vaccine or effective treatment for the virus, there is no way we will be able to reopen the economy successfully without an effective system of testing and contact tracing in place. It is likely that with 200,000 contact tracers, we could establish an effective tracing program. The federal government hires half a million temporary workers every ten years to conduct the decennial census—we could and should do large-scale hiring of public workers for contact tracing. That is one investment that would help not just in controlling the virus and allowing us to reopen earlier, but would also help the workers who would get those jobs, and their families, and therefore help the broader economy.

  Without adjusting the unemployment numbers for seasonal changes as the Labor Department did, Shierholz wrote, nearly 28 million Americans, or one in six workers, applied for unemployment benefits in the last six weeks. Even with these lower numbers, she said, the unemployment rate is still “over five times the worst period of the Great Recession.”

  EPI also reported Thursday that an estimated 12.7 million Americans have already lost their employer-based health insurance as a result of the pandemic.

  Common Dreams May 1, 2020
• 1 in 5 Workers File For Unemployment During Pandemic

  Increasing unemployment also means that the number of people without health insurance is increasing. The Economic Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, D.C., estimates that 12.7 million workers have lost their health insurance since the start of the pandemic.

  Urban Milwaukee May 1, 2020
• 3 WAYS COVID-19 HAS CHANGED THE INSURANCE LANDSCAPE

  1. INSURANCE COVERAGE LOSSES INCREASE

  A new Economic Policy Institute (EPI) analysis shows that many Americans are losing their employer-sponsored health insurance right when so many of them need it most.

  It finds that as of April 30, a little less than 28 million workers had been laid off or furloughed since early March, which translates into likely employer-provided health insurance losses of 12.7 million.

  Health Leaders May 1, 2020
• 3.8 million Americans filed for unemployment last week, bringing 6-week total to 30 million

  Unemployment claims are usually a good indicator as to how many Americans lost their jobs in the past week. But a recent survey from the Economic Policy Institute indicates that millions of Americans gave up filing for assistance or haven’t even tried because they knew systems would be overloaded.

  KBZK May 1, 2020
• Another 3.8 million US workers file for unemployment; coronavirus has put 30 million out of work

  The Economic Policy Institute has calculated that about 70% of people who have filed for unemployment benefits since the virus struck have been approved. Applications from the rest may still be pending, or they might have been turned down. Some applicants may not have earned enough money in their previous jobs to qualify for unemployment benefits.

  The Virginian-Pilot May 1, 2020
• 30 million have sought US unemployment aid since virus hit

  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.

  AP News May 1, 2020
• As COVID-19 Cuts Insurance Coverage, Free Clinics Strive to Fill the Gaps

  Although economists can track layoffs via new unemployment claims, tracking the uninsured in real time is trickier, as each worker can carry insurance for multiple family members, and some are able to shift to other sources of coverage. An analysis by the Economic Policy Institute estimated that 9.2 million workers were at risk of losing their health insurance coverage.

  US News May 1, 2020
• Headlines: April 30, 2020

  The US’s weekly Labor Department statistics have just been released and show that another 3.8 million Americans signed up for unemployment benefits last week, bringing the rough toll of job losses since the pandemic to 30 million. Economists are pointing out that the impact of the virus has decimated the new jobs created since the Great Recession. According to the Washington Post, “There is no precedent for figures like this in modern American history.” Meanwhile a study by the Economic Policy Institute earlier in the week pointed out that even the 30 million figure might be a serious underestimate as states grapple with overwhelming demand for leaving government agencies unable to handle the flood of unemployment claims. According to EPI, “an additional 8.9–13.9 million people could have filed for benefits had the process been easier.” An analysis of the newly unemployed shows that in the early weeks of the pandemic, so-called “full contact” industries suffered the most job losses, followed by producers, those working in the supply chain, and white collar workers. Now, even public sector jobs are being lost – at a time when there is the greatest need for public services. The Labor Department’s figure came on the same day that the Commerce Department announced that consumer spending decreased by a whopping 7.5%.

  Rising Up with Sonali May 1, 2020