Center for American Progress
January 12, 2021
According to the economic policy institute, “In order to stop the economic bleeding caused by the coronavirus pandemic and build a strong recovery, this country needs roughly $3 trillion in relief.”
ABC4-TV
January 12, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute’s Working Economics blog on July 16, 2020, posted an article by Josh Bivens entitled “Recovering fully from the coronavirus shock will require large increases in federal debt — and there’s nothing wrong with that.” This line of thought troubled us then, and troubles us even more now given the events of last week.
Detroit News
January 12, 2021
And though the pandemic has hurt all women, women of color are bearing the brunt of the pain. “The December job loss was definitely concentrated among Black and Hispanic women. No question,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute. “For white women, it’s a total disaster, but that’s dwarfed by what’s happening in other demographic groups.”
Huffpost
January 12, 2021
“With hiring and job openings at these levels, the economy is facing a long, slow recovery without additional action from Congress,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
Reuters
January 12, 2021
In November, the number of job openings softened to 6.5 million from 6.6 million the previous month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics released this month, while hires were essentially unchanged, increasing to 5.98 million from 5.91 million. Layoffs rose to 2 million from 1.7 million on the month.
This increase was described Tuesday as “troubling” by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank. “The latest congressional relief bill is an important step toward addressing some of this pain, but it is not at the scale of the problem. I’m hopeful that more relief measures are on the horizon for increasingly desperate workers and their families. Senate Republicans forced the December bill to be far too small,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the EPI.
“The U.S. economy is seeing a significantly slower hiring pace than we experienced in May or June — roughly where it was before the recession, which is a big problem given that we have only recovered just over half of the job losses from this spring,” the EPI said. “And job openings are now substantially below where they were before the recession began.”
There were 10.7 million unemployed workers, but only 6.5 million job openings in November. “This translates into a job seeker ratio of about 1.6 unemployed workers to every job opening,” Gould said, “or for every 16 workers who were officially counted as unemployed, there were only available jobs for 10 of them. That means, no matter what they did, there were no jobs for 4.2 million unemployed workers.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics data only covers through November, so is likely rosier than the actual jobs landscape, according to EPI. “It doesn’t even capture December’s job losses, which were substantial. With hiring and job openings at these levels, the economy is facing a long, slow recovery without additional action from Congress,” Gould added. The job losses, thus far, have been concentrated in the services sector, signaling a two-tired economic and jobs recovery.
MarketWatch
January 12, 2021
According to Robert Scott of the Economic Policy Institute, if we could revalue our currency, “the U.S. trade deficit could be reduced by $200 to $500 billion, raising demand for U.S. exports (which are dominated by manufactured goods). Stopping currency manipulation and revaluing the dollar could create 2 to 5 million jobs”.
Industry Week
January 12, 2021
DOL didn’t say how much workers would lose by being misclassified as independent contractors, though it conceded “this rule could leave workers with fewer critical job-based benefits, including health insurance’—during a pandemic, Scott noted—-“and retirement.”
The Economic Policy Institute calculated the costs, though: $3 billion yearly in lost wages for all independent contractors—truckers, warehouse workers, adjunct professors, some fast food workers, and others—nationwide. Cash-strapped states would lose payroll and workers comp revenue and there would be “a $750 million hit to social insurance programs” including jobless benefits, EPI calculated.
The present and potential “independent contractors” aren’t the only workers who would take an economic hit under Trump regime midnight rules. So would workers, most of them workers of color, who try to survive on tips.
They’d lose at least $700 million annually, EPI Senior Economist Heidi Shierholz reported after DOL unveiled its final “midnight” tipped workers rule on Dec. 11. And that DOL estimate was in the preliminary version, in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic hit.
People’s World
January 12, 2021
Center for American Progress
January 12, 2021
According to the economic policy institute, “In order to stop the economic bleeding caused by the coronavirus pandemic and build a strong recovery, this country needs roughly $3 trillion in relief.”
ABC4-TV
January 12, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute’s Working Economics blog on July 16, 2020, posted an article by Josh Bivens entitled “Recovering fully from the coronavirus shock will require large increases in federal debt — and there’s nothing wrong with that.” This line of thought troubled us then, and troubles us even more now given the events of last week.
Detroit News
January 12, 2021
And though the pandemic has hurt all women, women of color are bearing the brunt of the pain. “The December job loss was definitely concentrated among Black and Hispanic women. No question,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute. “For white women, it’s a total disaster, but that’s dwarfed by what’s happening in other demographic groups.”
Huffpost
January 12, 2021
“With hiring and job openings at these levels, the economy is facing a long, slow recovery without additional action from Congress,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
Reuters
January 12, 2021
In November, the number of job openings softened to 6.5 million from 6.6 million the previous month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics released this month, while hires were essentially unchanged, increasing to 5.98 million from 5.91 million. Layoffs rose to 2 million from 1.7 million on the month.
This increase was described Tuesday as “troubling” by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank. “The latest congressional relief bill is an important step toward addressing some of this pain, but it is not at the scale of the problem. I’m hopeful that more relief measures are on the horizon for increasingly desperate workers and their families. Senate Republicans forced the December bill to be far too small,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the EPI.
“The U.S. economy is seeing a significantly slower hiring pace than we experienced in May or June — roughly where it was before the recession, which is a big problem given that we have only recovered just over half of the job losses from this spring,” the EPI said. “And job openings are now substantially below where they were before the recession began.”
There were 10.7 million unemployed workers, but only 6.5 million job openings in November. “This translates into a job seeker ratio of about 1.6 unemployed workers to every job opening,” Gould said, “or for every 16 workers who were officially counted as unemployed, there were only available jobs for 10 of them. That means, no matter what they did, there were no jobs for 4.2 million unemployed workers.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics data only covers through November, so is likely rosier than the actual jobs landscape, according to EPI. “It doesn’t even capture December’s job losses, which were substantial. With hiring and job openings at these levels, the economy is facing a long, slow recovery without additional action from Congress,” Gould added. The job losses, thus far, have been concentrated in the services sector, signaling a two-tired economic and jobs recovery.
MarketWatch
January 12, 2021
Joining us is the senior economist for the Economic Policy Institute. we love having you on the program. We just had Jim Paulsen say jobless figures artificially high-end jobs will quickly come back. do you agree?
Elise Gould: I appreciate his optimism, but it is not as simple as that. We have had weakened demand for several months. yes, shuttering has been a problem. We want businesses to open up, but many people have suffered for many months, they are behind on their rent, their mortgage, not able to put food on the table. To think they are going to rush out and spend money is wrongheaded.
Bloomberg TV
January 11, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute noted that long-term unemployment, of 27 weeks or more, continues to rise, increasing by 27,000 in December.
Route Fifty
January 11, 2021
People wait for the bus on Park Street in the Frog Hollow neighborhood of Hartford. The top 1% of the families in Connecticut make 37.2 times more than the bottom 99%, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Connecticut Mirror
January 11, 2021
Elise Gould at the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute, writes:
The latest Congressional relief bill is an important step toward addressing some of this pain, but it is not at the scale of the problem. I’m hopeful that more relief measures are on the horizon for increasingly desperate workers and their families. Senate Republicans forced the December bill to be far too small. Fortunately, with the Democratic majority in the Senate given the results of the Georgia runoffs, Democrats will now be able to get more relief measures through reconciliation. Top priorities must be aid to state and local governments and further extensions of unemployment insurance.
Daily Kos
January 11, 2021
Daniel Costa, abogado y director de Investigación de Leyes de Inmigración de EPI, indicó que esta nueva norma incentivará a los empleadores para que paguen a sus empleados inmigrantes salarios justos, acordes al mercado laboral de Estados Unidos.
“Esto, a su vez, mejorará el programa (de visas) al reducir el número de trabajadores H-1B mal pagados según las normas salariales de Estados Unidos, pero sin reducir el número total de visas H-1B que se emiten, y también protegerá los salarios de los trabajadores estadounidenses en situación similar”, dijo en sus comentarios a USCIS.
Dallas Morning News
January 11, 2021
To compare the price of education to wages over time, the cost of education has risen eight times faster than wages. According to data from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), since 1979 wages for the so-called middle class have only increased 6 percent — less than 0.2 percent each year — while low-wage workers’ wages have decreased 5 percent. Student debtors simply haven’t been paid wages sufficient to meet their basic needs.
The Hill
January 11, 2021
The need for enrichment can be met by reducing unpredictability in workers’ schedules and ensuring better pay for those who do work irregular or nontraditional hours. Scholars at the Brookings Institution and the Economic Policy Institute have identified a host of promising reforms in this arena.
The Hechinger Report
January 11, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, estimates that elimination of the 80/20 rule will cost workers $700 million annually.
The rule change, EPI argues, “will transfer large amounts of money from workers to their employers. We also find that as employers ask tipped workers to do more non-tipped work as a result of this rule, employment in non-tipped food service occupations will decline by 5.3 percent and employment in tipped occupations will increase by 12.2 percent, resulting in 243,000 jobs shifting from being non-tipped to being tipped.”
For example, EPI suggests that restaurant owners may require tipped workers to assume duties once done by cleaning crews, dishwashers or prep cooks, all of whom receive a full minimum wage.
Washington Post
January 11, 2021
The problem of the disconnect between the economy and the markets is that it is unsustainable long-term. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the top 1% take home 21% of all income in the United States, the largest share since 1928.
Investing.com
January 11, 2021
Because of miserably inadequate federal benefits, even those workers with access to employment face the Catch-22 between going to work and risking infection and staying home and risking destitution. Less than one-quarter of the workforce worked remotely or from home over the last four weeks, according to analysis by the Economic Policy Institute.
World Socialist Web Site
January 11, 2021
The $900 billion stimulus and relief package signed into law in late December should provide a significant boost to the economy, softening the blow from the resurgent virus. “Without that stimulus package, over 10 million people would have lost unemployment insurance benefits at the end of December,” Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute told Marketplace. “That would have been a huge drag on the economy that we will not see.”
The Fiscal Times
January 11, 2021
Desde Economic Policy Institute se refleja que 26.8 millones de trabajadores han sido impactaos negativamente por la COVID, 10.7 millones de ellos están oficialmente desempleados pero además 7.5 millones trabajan menos horas o han visto cómo sus salarios se han recortado, 4.9 millones ya no están en la fuerza laboral pero se deberían calcular a 3.7 millones más.
El Diario
January 11, 2021
“President-elect Biden will inherit an economy that has been decimated by Trump, who not only presided over outright job losses during his tenure, but also enacted a litany of anti-worker policy decisions and squandered the labor market strength he inherited,” wrote Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
Gould called on the new Congress to pass more aid for state and local governments in addition to extending unemployment benefits.
She called the job losses in December “an unequivocal disaster for the state of the economic recovery.” She noted the year ended with 9.8 million fewer jobs than before the pandemic began in February, and the economy is down 546,000 jobs since Trump took office in January 2017.
Courthouse News
January 11, 2021
“Until the virus is under control, until people can freely engage in economic activity again, there is one hand tied behind the economy’s back,” said Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. “That is totally different than what Obama-Biden faced when they came in.”
Washington Post
January 11, 2021
Higher-wage workers were six times more likely to be able to work from home than lower-wage workers, according to research from the Economic Policy Institute. The lower-wage workers who had to continue reporting to work risked continual exposure to the virus — and were more likely to live with family members over the age of 60.
Business Insider
January 11, 2021
All that said, mapping out this network of institutional and grassroots infrastructure is maddeningly complex. It includes the Democratic Party in its various incarnations, and closely allied national issue groups such as Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, or the League of Conservation Voters. There is also the labor movement; large donors; mass digital groups such as MoveOn; the new wave of post-2016 resistance groups such as Indivisible and Run for Something; established think thanks such as Public Citizen, Common Cause, Center for American Progress, the Economic Policy Institute, and Demos, which run from center to left; newer and younger groups such as Sunrise; and groups that reflect the new consciousness around racial justice and remediation such as Color of Change.
American Prospect
January 11, 2021