Media clips

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• Progressives Urge Biden to Back ‘Medicare for Kids’ in Appeal to Sanders Supporters

  The proposal drew support from Josh Bivens, research director for the Economic Policy Institute.

  Common Dreams April 15, 2020
• Q&A: California’s unemployment agency talks benefits

  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
• States Need Significantly More Fiscal Relief to Slow the Emerging Deep Recession

  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
• THE CORONAVIRUS MESSAGE: AMERICAN NEEDS UNIVERSAL PAID SICK LEAVE

  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
• Will Coronavirus Accelerate Education Inequality?

  In September of 2017 the Economic Policy Institute published a study on social class (read: socioeconomic status) and educational success. The report concluded that the “single most significant predictor of educational success” is social class and that performance gaps by social class begin early, creating a situation where a child who starts behind, tends to stay behind throughout their educational career.

  Medium April 15, 2020
• Why are so many black Americans dying of COVID-19? l Expert Opinion

  African Americans are less likely to have jobs that allow them to work from home. According to the Economic Policy Institute, less than one in five black workers is able to do so. African Americans also have the lowest car ownership of all racial and ethnic groups in the U.S., leaving them to use public transportation and exposing them to a greater number of individuals in closed, small spaces. Many black workers do not have paid sick leave or time off. In addition, black Americans are also more likely to live in overcrowded settings, making social distancing or self-isolating recommendations difficult to impossible to follow. Moreover, study after study has shown that black Americans disproportionately lack access to health care when compared to white patients.

  Philadelphia Inquirer April 15, 2020
• Unemployment: These are every state’s claims since the coronavirus shut the economy down

  The projected unemployment rate by state for July 2020 came from a report published by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank.

  USA Today April 15, 2020
• The Pandemic Response Measures State and Local Governments Should Move On Now

  The Trump administration has failed the American people to an astonishing extent during the current pandemic crisis. Failed to prepare, failed to take the threat seriously, failed to direct resources where they’re needed, and failed to tell the truth. While Congress has provided some aid to state and local governments in relief packages, given the enormous fiscal challenges already underway, it will not go nearly far enough to help offset the health and economic fallout of Covid-19.

  Route Fifty April 15, 2020
• April 15, 2020
• Opinion: A Pandemic May Not Discriminate, but its Recovery Likely Will

  For Babayan, who along with her colleagues has called on Washington state to enact a fairer tax code, the data is unsurprising and distressing. Not only does it highlight that the working class is at higher risk of contracting the coronavirus, but so too are many in communities of color. She cites an Economic Policy Institute study showing that fewer than one in five Black workers, and one in six Latinx workers, can work from home. And while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has yet to release the demographics of coronavirus patients, data from Illinois, North Carolina and Milwaukee County show the virus is battering Black communities the hardest.

  South Seattle Emerald April 9, 2020