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
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.
Common Dreams
April 30, 2020
At the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), director of policy Heidi Shierholz wrote that the CARES Act and subsequent relief packages, including the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), other small business assistance, and one-time $1,200 payments to many Americans, “are not enough” to protect millions of people from financial ruin.
Common Dreams
April 30, 2020
Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist at Economic Policy Institute, said many low-wage and front line workers lost their jobs quickly due to social distancing measures, like restaurant workers, hotel workers and event workers.
“In some cases, those workers can actually earn more on unemployment than they were in their old jobs, which does just highlight, we had a wage problem in these jobs before this crisis ever happened,” Shierholz said.
WWNY TV 7 News
April 30, 2020
The tech industry has been the golden goose in our economy, generating our best-paid jobs. Politicians often urge young Americans to study STEM, and public schools have greatly expanded STEM course work. But the tech industry currently accounts for only about 10 percent of the economy; 71 percent of STEM workers in Silicon Valley are foreign born according to a report based on 2016 Census data, with many arriving on guest worker visas. And according to the Economic Policy Institute, only 50 percent of U.S. STEM college grads eventually land a STEM job.
Bangor Daily News
April 30, 2020
A survey by the Economic Policy Institute released on Tuesday indicates that for every 10 people who applied for the subsidy, there are 3 or 4 who tried in vain and two more who did not even choose to do it because they found it difficult to do so.
La Raza
April 30, 2020
Daniel Costa, an analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, told The Atlantic that Trump’s policies were more cruel than practical, noting that the “immigration ban” just “mostly cut the number of people who can come to reunify with family.”
Trump, he said, has “taken action to reduce the ways that immigrants can come to the U.S. where they have rights and a path to permanent residence and citizenship, but he hasn’t touched the visa categories where there’s tons of abuses.”
“Although the coronavirus outbreak has largely halted immigration to the United States, the pandemic will someday subside, while nativist efforts to engineer a white majority by fiat will not,” he wrote. “The long-term objective of those who crafted the president’s executive order is not to protect American workers, or to serve American business interests or to grow the American economy. It is to maintain America’s traditional aristocracy of race by any means necessary.”
Salon
April 30, 2020
100 Days in Appalachia, a nonprofit digital newsroom, has pointed to the risk of COVID-19 closing rural hospitals as they halt nonemergency procedures and take on new costs to prepare for the pandemic. The progressive Economic Policy Institute has called on states to do more to prepare, including expanding Medicaid. With the November election approaching and every state legislative seat open, the question will be whether Republicans are willing to compromise, either ahead of the election or afterwards.
The American Prospect
April 30, 2020