If the emergency pandemic programs were to be reinstated, the economy “would be boosted by 3.5 percent, and 5.1 million more jobs would be added in 2021,” said Economic Policy Institute Senior Economist Elise Gould and Director of Research Josh Bivens, in a report released Wednesday.
“If the effective safety net functions provided by these programs were maintained through 2021, millions of workers would be better able to avoid economic catastrophe while out of work due to the pandemic,” they concluded.
NBC News
December 7, 2020
In the coming weeks some 12 million Americans will stop receiving unemployment benefits, the CDC’s nationwide eviction moratorium will expire, student loan borrowers will resume payments on their debts, and other financial relief programs will expire.
“It’s kind of devastating,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
“We were already in this terrible situation now the caseloads are rising and the relief is going to end. What that means for the economy moving forward is, I hate to say it, but we could be seeing a double-dip to the recession.”
Friday’s jobs report made it clear to Gould that it is “absolutely necessary to reinstate and extend all the unemployment programs.” That would include Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which through the CARES Act, enabled gig workers, self-employed workers and independent contractors to qualify for unemployment benefits.
MarketWatch
December 7, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimated December 2 that 5.1 million more jobs would be created if the government kept open the suite of pandemic unemployment insurance programs in 2021, including the extra $600-per-week benefit.
Yahoo Finance
December 7, 2020
“Good data is essential for policymaking in a crisis and we did not have that this time around, which is unacceptable,” Shierholz, now director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, tells Axios in an email. “[K]nowing exactly what happened so that we can make the investments to ensure this will never happen again is crucial.”
Axios
December 7, 2020
Elise Gould, senior economist at the nonprofit think tank Economic Policy Institute, said holiday hiring in November didn’t make up for other factors slowing the recovery. She also noted expanded unemployment insurance benefits will expire the day after Christmas.
“This spells trouble not only for workers and their families who are desperately trying to keep a roof over their heads and put food on the table—especially with the eviction moratorium also set to expire on December 31—but also for the recovery itself,” she wrote. “It didn’t have to be this way.”
Gould said over 5 million jobs could be created next year if lawmakers extended pandemic unemployment programs through 2021. She said relief efforts should focus on helping state and local governments.
Courthouse News Service
December 7, 2020
In June, Josh Bivens and David Cooper at the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute wrote that without more federal aid, we’re facing a result like this:
If policymakers do nothing at the federal level to address these shortfalls, the United States could end 2021 with 5.3 million fewer jobs, with losses in every state.
Daily Kos
December 7, 2020
Even more concerning: The number of people who have been unemployed for 27 months or longer continues to grow. It grew by 385,000 in November to nearly 4 million people, more than a third of the total number of people without a job.
That figure is expected to hit 40 percent soon, mimicking the Great Recession, during which time the share of long-term unemployed remained at around 40 percent for three years, said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank.
“The days of imagining a V-shaped recovery are over,” Gould said. “The easy gains we saw this summer of people on temporary layoffs getting rehired—that’s over. We are going to have to work hard to claw back all those jobs.”
The 19th
December 7, 2020
The real number of Americans out of work would total roughly 19 million, accounting for the number of officially unemployed, plus workers on temporary layoff, those who dropped out of the work force, and people who didn’t respond to the survey the jobs report is based on, according to Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute.
“If all these workers were taken into account, the unemployment rate would have been 11.2% in November,” Shierholz
wrote on Twitter.
CNN Business
December 7, 2020
Most financial fragility is caused by low pay, not the frequency with which low wages are paid. According to the Economic Policy Institute, wages have stagnating over the last 40 years (disclosure: I sit on the board of EPI). “From the end of World War II through the late 1970s, the U.S. economy generated rapid wage growth that was widely shared,” the institute reports. Since 1979 average wage growth has slowed sharply, with the biggest declines in wage growth at the bottom and the middle.
Forbes
December 7, 2020
How trickle-down economics works…for the one-percent. In the last 40 years, wages for the bottom 90% grew by an incremental 26%, while income for the top 0.1 percent shot up 345%…
Counterpunch
December 7, 2020
The housing disparities are especially pronounced along racial lines. Minority populations have always dealt with racism in the financial markets and redlining practices that keep communities segregated and unequal. But the pandemic is also exposing other racial inequities that make it even harder for minorities to become homeowners. For instance, while 30% of white workers can do their jobs remotely—and are thus more able to move to a city with a lower cost of living—only 20% of Black workers can do the same, according to a March study from the Economic Policy Institute.
Time Magazine
December 7, 2020
“Whatever lame-duck agreement may happen, we already know that it won’t be nearly enough, so it’s still essential for the Democrats to sweep in Georgia for the kind of stimulus package that economists have a large consensus as being needed, can also be potentially passed,” Heidi Schierholz, the director of the Economic Policy Institute, told AlterNet.
AlterNet
December 7, 2020
Caroline Hyde, Romaine Bostick & Taylor Riggs bring you the latest news and analysis leading up to the final minutes and seconds before the closing bell on Wall Street and tackle Warner Bros. Films going to HBO Max, Brexit talks and the Bloomberg 50 list. Guests today: Diane Swonk of Grant Thorton, Stewart Butterfield of Slack, Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson, Orlando Bravo of Thoma Bravo, Stephen Trent of Citi, Leo Grohowski of BNY Mellon Wealth Management, Dennis Debusschere of Evercore ISI, Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute, Documentary filmmaker Jason Hehir.
Bloomberg TV
December 7, 2020
One of the three, Jared Bernstein, has been a respected face in progressive economic circles for decades. A long-time fixture at the Economic Policy Institute, Bernstein co-authored nine annual editions of EPI’s annual sourcebook on the status of America’s ongoing class war, The State of Working America, and understands the squeeze on America’s workers as well as any economist.
Inequality.org
December 7, 2020
The cost of infant care for one child can take up nearly a quarter of California’s median family income, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Meanwhile, child care workers in Los Angeles County make an average of $14.65 an hour.
LAist
December 7, 2020
According to an analysis by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, if the pandemic unemployment insurance benefits were reinstated and the virus was brought under control, over 5 million jobs could be created or saved.
NBC News
December 7, 2020
Several key pandemic programs are set to expire in less than a month, including a suite of unemployment insurance programs established in the CARES Act. A recent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute found extending and reinstating enhanced jobless benefits through 2021 could save or create 5.1 million jobs, boost GDP by 3.5% and increase total personal income by more than $440 billion.
Housing Wire
December 7, 2020
There is scant evidence of considerable reshoring, stories of a new wave notwithstanding. One report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute — which, like Trump, has been broadly supportive of reducing U.S.-China trade imbalances and reinvigorating U.S. manufacturing — detailed that between “inconsistent” trade measures and tax policies that “have encouraged outsourcing,” Trump’s China policies have actually “encouraged outsourcing.” Covid-19 may ultimately induce greater domestic production of medical equipment and pharmaceuticals, but that wouldn’t result from pre-2020 trade policy.
Washington Post
December 7, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute estimates between now and 2022, $2 trillion in relief is needed, with an additional $400 billion annually through the end of 2024.
WGBTA-TV (Wisconsin
December 7, 2020
Heather Boushey, the president and CEO of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, also has a long history in the Beltway. She’s worked with and testified in front of Congress as an economist for the Center for American Progress, the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee, the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and the Economic Policy Institute. In 2016, it was announced that she would take the role of chief economist on the Clinton-Kaine transition team had Clinton won, and she served as an economic counselor to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
Fortune
December 7, 2020
Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, warned that with key federal unemployment programs set to expire at the end of December and coronavirus infections on the rise nationwide, “millions of workers and their families are in for an even harsher winter” unless Congress takes decisive action.
“The unemployment rate edged down to 6.7%, but for the ‘wrong’ reasons as 400,000 people left the labor force,” Gould noted in an analysis of the new figures. “The number of workers unemployed 27 weeks or more—the long-term unemployed—shot up to 3.9 million in November. Now, over one-third (36.9%) of the total unemployed are long-term unemployed.”
Common Dreams
December 7, 2020
Ackman homes in on the exacerbating growth of U.S. wage inequality. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reports that between 1979 and 2019, the top 1 percent of earners enjoyed 160 percent income growth, while the bottom 90 percent of earners saw stagnating wages that rose only 26 percent of the same 40 year period. “In every period since 1979, wages for the bottom 90% were continuously redistributed upward to the top 10% and frequently to the very highest 1.0% and 0.1%,” it concluded.
Forbes
December 7, 2020
A continued concern for restaurant workers is that many do not have insurance through their employers, and those who contract COVID-19 may not be covered. A 2014 study by the Economic Policy Institute found that 14.4% of restaurant workers were covered.
Dallas Morning News
December 7, 2020
Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous and Sibile Marcellus discuss EPI’s latest report.
Yahoo Finance
December 7, 2020
Economic disparities are overwhelmingly disproportionate for Black Americans. At the height of the pandemic, the unemployment rate spiked for African Americans more than any other racial group, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In 2018, the overall income for Black Americans was about 42% lower than white Americans, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
ABC News
December 7, 2020
Geographically, the largest increases in Hispanic unemployment during the same period were in Massachusetts (-26%), Nevada (-25.5%), and New Jersey (-18%). States where Hispanic employment was among the least affected, according to the Economic Policy Institute, include New Mexico (-4.6%), Utah (-6%), Texas (-9.3%), and Georgia (-9.1%).
CNBC
December 7, 2020
And that’s just the federal share of taxes. To find the total tax burden on the top 1%, GOBankingRates analyzed 2019 data from the Tax Foundation on federal and state income tax rates for single filers and married couples filing jointly. The average annual income of the top 1% was sourced from the Economic Policy Institute. GOBankingRates then calculated both the effective and marginal tax rates on the top 1% in every state using an in-house calculator. The study also found how much the top 1% spends on sales taxes by looking at information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center. Property tax was excluded due to the lack of consistent data for home values of the top 1% in every state.
GO Banking Rates
December 7, 2020
Close to one in four workers between the ages of 16 and 24 is unemployed, according to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute. There is hope for young workers like Risse, but avoiding a career derailment and a lost generation will require young job-seekers and employers alike to focus more on connection.
Fortune
December 7, 2020
If the emergency pandemic programs were to be reinstated, the economy “would be boosted by 3.5 percent, and 5.1 million more jobs would be added in 2021,” said Economic Policy Institute Senior Economist Elise Gould and Director of Research Josh Bivens, in a report released Wednesday.
“If the effective safety net functions provided by these programs were maintained through 2021, millions of workers would be better able to avoid economic catastrophe while out of work due to the pandemic,” they concluded.
NBC News
December 7, 2020
Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and former chief Labor Department economist in the Obama administration, said the picture will turn even more grim if Congress doesn’t provide additional aid right away.
In particular, she noted, budget-strained state and local governments will make further cuts in spending, setting back the recovery potentially by years as happened after the Great Recession in 2008-09.
States and local government activity accounts for 12% to 15% of the national economy, she said, and it will be a “massive drag” on growth if there’s no help for the governments. “They’ll be like little anti-stimulus machines,” she said.
LA Times
December 7, 2020