The Covid-19 pandemic has only accelerated this questioning—a return to an understanding of work as a site of struggle, not liberation. It has also introduced a new kind of laborer: the “essential worker,” tying together workers who typically are not seen as having a shared fate, from grocery store cashiers to nurses, food app delivery drivers to teachers. Workers in meatpacking plants, in Amazon warehouses, in critical infrastructure have been recognized as fundamental in maintaining society as we know it, even as their labor is demeaned and their lives endangered. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimates that there are more than 55 million workers across 12 industries who now share this label: 70 percent didn’t have a college degree; one in eight were covered by a collective bargaining agreement. In frontline essential work, the Center for Economic and Policy Research found, women and people of color are overrepresented (disaggregated data on women of color was not presented). They also found that one-third of essential workers live in low-income families.
The New Republic
January 22, 2021
“The top 1 percent of households claimed about 83 percent of the benefits of that tax law. There are very few African Americans in the top 1 percent,” said Valerie Wilson, director of Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity and the economy. “When we look at the economic well being of African Americans, we have to look not just at absolute progress, but at relative progress, and there has been absolutely no gains on that front.”
Washington Post
January 22, 2021
New York Times
January 22, 2021
Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, praised Biden’s plan shortly after it was unveiled last week.
“Most importantly, this package is at the scale of the problems it is aiming to solve. To support the spending and investment needed to fully repair the labor market, we estimated in early December that roughly $3 trillion was needed. Less than one-third of this amount was included in the end-of-year recovery package, and the Biden administration’s proposal fills in the remaining amount,” Bivens said in a statement.
Newsweek
January 22, 2021
Sources
Economic Policy Institute, “Minimum Wage Tracker,” Jan. 7, 2021
Politifact
January 22, 2021
Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think-tank, argued that the CBO’s estimated job losses from enacting a $15 minimum wage are “overstated.”
“The crucial fact is that an employment decline as a result of a minimum wage increase doesn’t necessarily mean any worker is actually worse off,” she wrote in a July 2019 report. “For a wide variety of reasons, a sizable share of low-wage workers routinely cycle in and out of employment; each quarter, more than 20% of the lowest-wage workers leave or start a job.”
MarketWatch
January 22, 2021
New York Times
January 22, 2021
Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, praised Biden’s plan shortly after it was unveiled last week.
“Most importantly, this package is at the scale of the problems it is aiming to solve. To support the spending and investment needed to fully repair the labor market, we estimated in early December that roughly $3 trillion was needed. Less than one-third of this amount was included in the end-of-year recovery package, and the Biden administration’s proposal fills in the remaining amount,” Bivens said in a statement.
Newsweek
January 22, 2021
Sources
Economic Policy Institute, “Minimum Wage Tracker,” Jan. 7, 2021
Politifact
January 22, 2021
Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think-tank, argued that the CBO’s estimated job losses from enacting a $15 minimum wage are “overstated.”
“The crucial fact is that an employment decline as a result of a minimum wage increase doesn’t necessarily mean any worker is actually worse off,” she wrote in a July 2019 report. “For a wide variety of reasons, a sizable share of low-wage workers routinely cycle in and out of employment; each quarter, more than 20% of the lowest-wage workers leave or start a job.”
MarketWatch
January 22, 2021
“It’s a disaster. Those kids who have already got the worst of Covid and its consequences are the ones who are going to face a larger lack of sufficient, and sufficiently qualified, teachers,” said Emma Garcia, an education economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank in Washington. “It’s going to have negative consequences immediately and it’s going to take them longer to be able to catch up.”
New York Times
January 21, 2021
Coronavirus has exacerbated many harsh and long-standing inequities in our state. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black and Latinx people are suffering disproportionately higher infection and death rates from COVID-19. Black workers also make up the majority of essential workers in several sectors, including food, agriculture, and industrial, according to a recent Economic Policy Institute report. These already vulnerable workers are frontline heroes who put their health and safety at risk to protect ours. Yet despite their incredible sacrifices, many of these workers earn minimum wage, without access to earned sick time, hazard pay, or death benefits.
West Orlando News
January 21, 2021
El rescate de la pandemia es urgente. La COVID deja ya 402,000 muertos ya y todo indica que no se ha llegado al punto de inflexión para la mejora. La de la COVID es una crisis económica que la BLS (Oficina de Estadísticas Laborales) dice que mantiene a más de 10 millones en el desempleo, aunque el daño es mayor. El Economic Policy Institute cifra en 26.8 millones de trabajadores los que carecen de empleo definitiva o temporalmente o con menos horas de trabajo y/o sueldo, algo más del 15% de la población en edad de trabajar.
El Diario
January 21, 2021
Elise Gould is with the Economic Policy Institute. She said the pandemic didn’t necessarily create new problems for working women – it just revealed or magnified disparities that already existed.
“It really mattered whether or not you had the ability to work from home, right? So if you have a higher paying job, you’re more likely to be able to work from home. If you’re White, you’re more likely to be able to work from home. So you’re sheltered from not only the health risks, but the economic shock of job loss,” she said.
Boise State Public Radio
January 21, 2021
In 1968, the minimum wage was more than 52% of the median wage for full-time US workers. By 2014, that ratio had declined to 37% percent. “If the minimum wage had kept pace with price increases since 1968, by 2014 it would have stood at $9.54—about 32 percent higher than its actual level,” notes a 2015 report from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
Quartz
January 21, 2021
The 2019 Economic Policy Institute article “Black women’s labor market history reveals deep-seated race and gender discrimination” clearly refutes this notion. “Compared with other women in the United States, Black women have always had the highest levels of labor market participation regardless of age, marital status, or presence of children at home,” the article asserts. Obviously, Black women are and always have been well represented in the broader labor force. Where they’re typically not represented is in executive leadership.
Forbes
January 21, 2021
In December, Uber’s CEO asked the governors of all 50 states to give the ride-hailing company’s workers priority for the coronavirus vaccine. The company sent a similar letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Colorado Sun
January 21, 2021
Richard Rothstein is the author of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (Liveright, 2017). He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Policy Institute and a Senior Fellow (emeritus) at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In addition to his recent book, The Color of Law, he is the author of many other articles and books on race and education, which can be found through the Economic Policy Institute. Previous published books include Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Improvement to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap, and Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right.
World Architecture
January 21, 2021
But the CBO’s estimates about job losses are more negative than expected, according to Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning research group.
“The benefits of the policy far outweigh the potential costs,” he said.
CNBC
January 21, 2021
“It’s a disaster. Those kids who have already got the worst of COVID and its consequences are the ones who are going to face a larger lack of sufficient, and sufficiently qualified, teachers,” Emma Garcia, an education economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told The New York Times. “It’s going to have negative consequences immediately and it’s going to take them longer to be able to catch up.”
The Hill
January 21, 2021
Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think-tank, argued that the CBO’s estimated job losses from enacting a $15 minimum wage are “overstated.”
“The crucial fact is that an employment decline as a result of a minimum wage increase doesn’t necessarily mean any worker is actually worse off,” she wrote in a July 2019 report. “For a wide variety of reasons, a sizeable share of low-wage workers routinely cycle in and out of employment; each quarter, more than 20 percent of the lowest-wage workers leave or start a job.”
MarketWatch
January 21, 2021
And this isn’t a tactic unique to academic organizing. According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, employers in the United States spend a collective $340 million on “union avoidance” consultants each year, generally for the purpose of framing unionizing efforts as labor’s bogeyman.
Orlando Weekly
January 21, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute says 9.8 million jobs have disappeared since February 2020. The think tank stated Jan. 14 that 26.8 million workers are now jobless or have experienced a cut in hours or wages due to the pandemic. (tinyurl.com/y3blh3qj)
Mundo Obrero Workers World
January 21, 2021
Coronavirus has exacerbated many harsh and long-standing inequities in our state. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black and Latinx people are suffering disproportionately higher infection and death rates from COVID-19. Black workers also make up the majority of essential workers in several sectors, including food, agriculture, and industrial, according to a recent Economic Policy Institute report. These already vulnerable workers are frontline heroes who put their health and safety at risk to protect ours. Yet despite their incredible sacrifices, many of these workers earn minimum wage, without access to earned sick time, hazard pay, or death benefits.
West Orlando News
January 21, 2021
El rescate de la pandemia es urgente. La COVID deja ya 402,000 muertos ya y todo indica que no se ha llegado al punto de inflexión para la mejora. La de la COVID es una crisis económica que la BLS (Oficina de Estadísticas Laborales) dice que mantiene a más de 10 millones en el desempleo, aunque el daño es mayor. El Economic Policy Institute cifra en 26.8 millones de trabajadores los que carecen de empleo definitiva o temporalmente o con menos horas de trabajo y/o sueldo, algo más del 15% de la población en edad de trabajar.
El Diario
January 21, 2021
Elise Gould is with the Economic Policy Institute. She said the pandemic didn’t necessarily create new problems for working women – it just revealed or magnified disparities that already existed.
“It really mattered whether or not you had the ability to work from home, right? So if you have a higher paying job, you’re more likely to be able to work from home. If you’re White, you’re more likely to be able to work from home. So you’re sheltered from not only the health risks, but the economic shock of job loss,” she said.
Boise State Public Radio
January 21, 2021
In 1968, the minimum wage was more than 52% of the median wage for full-time US workers. By 2014, that ratio had declined to 37% percent. “If the minimum wage had kept pace with price increases since 1968, by 2014 it would have stood at $9.54—about 32 percent higher than its actual level,” notes a 2015 report from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
Quartz
January 21, 2021
The 2019 Economic Policy Institute article “Black women’s labor market history reveals deep-seated race and gender discrimination” clearly refutes this notion. “Compared with other women in the United States, Black women have always had the highest levels of labor market participation regardless of age, marital status, or presence of children at home,” the article asserts. Obviously, Black women are and always have been well represented in the broader labor force. Where they’re typically not represented is in executive leadership.
Forbes
January 21, 2021
In December, Uber’s CEO asked the governors of all 50 states to give the ride-hailing company’s workers priority for the coronavirus vaccine. The company sent a similar letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Colorado Sun
January 21, 2021