“Further, job losses are ongoing. Based on [gross domestic product] forecasts, we project that the net decline in employment could exceed 30 million by the end of June,” Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote in a Thursday morning blog post.
Newsweek
April 24, 2020
In a series of tweets Thursday and a blog post for the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the think tank’s senior economist and director of policy Heidi Shierholz explained the five recent weeks of DOL figures (pdf), shared employment projections for the next year, and—like Levitz—pressured members of Congress to step up the federal response.
EPI projects that by the end of June, net decline in employment could surpass 30 million, and “even under the best-case scenario” the nation’s unemployment rate could remain as high as 8% this time next year.
The CARES Act and a Senate-approved coronavirus bill expected to pass the House Thursday “both had some important provisions, but they are no match for the damage the economy is facing,” wrote Shierholz. “Federal policymakers need to do more.”
“The next relief and recovery package should provide $500 billion in aid to state and local governments, extend unemployment insurance benefits, provide better protections for workers and jobs, and include funding to safeguard our democracy,” she added. “And importantly, federal government relief should be tied to actual economic conditions (and not solely the unemployment rate), so that these provisions do not expire too early, when the economy and the people in it still need them.”
Common Dreams
April 24, 2020
An optimistic scenario would have the economy bouncing back in the second half of the year, which is possible if businesses begin to reopen and economic activity picks up, said Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. But even then, she said the unemployment rate nationally would probably remain around 8 percent a year from now, and closer to 10 percent by the election.
“The damage that has been done to the economy is just really, really dramatic,” she said. “It’s going to take some time to get back.”
Politico
April 24, 2020
Latinxs have high rates of underlying health conditions that could exacerbate the risks of COVID-19, and public health officials report that they have been exposed to the virus more than the general public. Many Latinx people live in close quarters, making it hard to practice social distancing, and work in jobs considered essential under stay-at-home advisories issued by governors across the country. The Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit thinktank, found that only 16.2 percent of Latinxs can work from home, raising their risk of becoming infected on the job.
Boston College
April 24, 2020
Data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show less than 30% of American workers can work from home. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the racial and ethnic breakdown of this data reveals large imbalances, with less than one in five black workers and approximately one in six Hispanic workers able to work from home.
Some states require individuals be referred by a primary care physician in order to be tested – a referral that people of color may be less likely to receive. According to an Economic Policy Institute analysis, only roughly 10% of workers earning $10.48 or less an hour have health insurance.
Daily Bruin
April 24, 2020
According to a 2018 report by the Economic Policy Institute, the top 1 percent of families in the U.S. earned an average of 26.3 times as much income as the bottom 99 percent; that ratio increases to 44.4 times in New York and 39.5 times in Florida. As of late 2017, the three richest people in the U.S.—Bill Gates of Microsoft, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway—own the equal amount of wealth as the bottom 160 million people in the country. Bezos’s company, Amazon, earned $11.2 billion in profits in 2018 but didn’t pay a single dollar in federal income tax, and instead received $129 million in tax breaks and credits.19 In January 2017, Oxfam reported that two men in Canada—David Thomson of Thomson Reuters and Galen Weston Sr. of George Weston Limited—had the same amount of wealth as the bottom 30 percent of the country.
Canadian Dimenson
April 24, 2020
“In the last five weeks, more than 24 million workers applied for unemployment insurance benefits. … That means more than one in seven workers applied for [unemployment insurance],” wrote Heidi Shierholz, former Labor Department chief economist under President Obama and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute.
“All else equal, job losses of this magnitude would translate into an unemployment rate of 18.3%,” she added. “However, the official unemployment rate, when it is released, will likely not reflect all coronavirus-related layoffs. This is due to the fact that jobless workers are only counted as unemployed if they are actively seeking work.”
CNBC
April 24, 2020
Celine McNicholas, director of government affairs at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said the administration’s priorities are also evidence of regulations they’re not pursuing.
“The failure to act at this moment says every bit as much as what they’re doing,” she said.
Los Angeles Times
April 24, 2020
Yet this number probably won’t be reflected in the official unemployment rate, according to a blog post by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
“This is due to the fact that jobless workers are only counted as unemployed if they are actively seeking work,” Heidi Shierholz, Senior Economist and Director of Policy at EPI wrote. “That means many workers who lose their job as a result of the virus will be counted as dropping out of the labor force instead of as unemployed, because they are unable to search for work due to the lockdown.”
Salon
April 24, 2020