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 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
Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist and the director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, previously told Business Insider that recessions typically hit younger workers harder in the short term, potentially reaping long-term consequences.
“The way a recession can really hurt people just starting out can have lasting effects,” she said. “There’s a lot of evidence that the first postgrad job you get sets the stage in some important way for later.”
Business Insider
December 7, 2020
Investment in sustainable school construction, like updated lighting, plumbing and electrical systems, as well as renewable energy projects, would not only be a great climate solution, but would generate significant numbers of new jobs. A $100 billion investment would create more than 1.9 million jobs, based on an Economic Policy Institute analysis.
The 74 Million
December 7, 2020
Former worker Grace Erpenbach told City Pages last month she was called into a meeting and presented with a choice: Stop organizing or lose your job. If true, such a threat would violate federal labor law even if it’s a common tactic. A recent study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found employers are charged with illegally firing employees in 20% of unionization efforts. Through a spokesperson, Spyhouse says Erpenbach was a manager and should not have participated in organizing efforts.
Payday Reports
December 7, 2020
Given the various ways in which the crisis has widened existing socioeconomic disparities and how these disparities impacted educational outcomes, educational inequities are growing. According to studies by the Economic Policy Institute, the pandemic has exacerbated well-documented opportunity gaps putting low-income students at a disadvantage. Despite COVID-19’s negative impact on our children, there is a solution to mitigate some of the impact to a degree: social-emotional learning programming.
Worcester Business Journal
December 7, 2020
As winter sets in and covid-19 cases surge throughout the US, millions of Americans find themselves unemployed. Extending the unemployment benefits of the kind put in place at the beginning of the pandemic could save over 5 million jobs according to a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute.
AS English
December 7, 2020
Post-college, it’s difficult for workers of color to financially catch up. As the Economic Policy Institute wrote in its latest wages report, “average wages grew faster among white and Hispanic workers than among [Black] workers for all education groups from 2000 to 2019.”
Business Insider
December 7, 2020
The chief concern — echoed by city officials across North America, Europe and Asia — is the supposed impact on the affordability of local housing. “A reasonable reading of the available evidence suggests that the costs imposed on renters’ budgets by Airbnb expansion substantially exceed the benefits to travellers,” concluded a 2019 report from the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington based think-tank. It drew on studies conducted in cities such as Boston and New York that found parallels between growing Airbnb activity and increased rent for locals.
Financial Times
December 7, 2020
Even before the pandemic, access to affordable, high-quality child care was shifting from an issue regarded as a personal and family responsibility to a matter of public concern, said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute. That’s partly because middle-class families were feeling the pinch as average annual costs for child care soared to roughly double the cost of in-state tuition at a public university.
The pandemic has exposed many fault lines in American society, and one of the most prominent has been the role of child care in keeping the economy moving. With schools and child-care centers closed and demands on working parents — mostly mothers — mounting, millions of women have left the workforce. Women’s labor-force participation rate in April fell to 54.7%, a level not seen since the late 1980s.
MarketWatch
December 7, 2020
Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, disagreed. Teachers not only ensure that children don’t fall further behind in their education, she said, but are also critical to the work force at large.
“When you talk about disproportionate impact and you’re concerned about people getting back into the labor force, many are mothers, and they will have a harder time if their children don’t have a reliable place to go,” she said. “And if you think generally about people who have jobs where they can’t telework, they are disproportionately Black and brown. They’ll have more of a challenge when child care is an issue.”
New York Times
December 7, 2020
If conditions have been less than ideal for owners, they’re even worse for the workforce. According to One Fair Wage, a nonprofit organization that advocates on behalf of tipped workers, the restaurant industry includes seven of the 10 lowest paying jobs in the country. People who work in the industry are twice as likely to need food stamps than the rest of the U.S. workforce, and according to the Economic Policy Institute, one out of six restaurant workers live below the poverty line. Although more restaurant employers have begun to offer healthcare benefits than did historically, perks like 401(k) accounts and paid parental leave are still vanishingly rare.
Medium
December 4, 2020
In addition to higher rates of infection among Black, Hispanic/Latinx and Native American communities, Black and Hispanic workers faced greater economic and health insecurity from the pandemic than White workers, the Economic Policy Institute reported in June. A report from the JPMorgan Chase Institute found that they also shouldered the worst burden through job losses and front-line work.
The Philadelphia Tribune
December 4, 2020
Wages for the richest 1% in the U.S. have soared 160% over the past four decades while the share of wages for the bottom 90% has shrunk, according to new data from the Economic Policy Institute.
Yahoo Finance
December 4, 2020
The study by the Economic Policy Institute says retaining unemployment insurance programs set to expire this month and reviving enhanced federal unemployment payments — an extra $600 per week — would spur the projected growth in 2021.
UPI
December 4, 2020
As Congress continues to debate new pandemic relief, a new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute finds extending and reinstating enhanced jobless benefits through 2021, in addition to getting the virus under control, could save or create 5.1 million jobs; boost GDP by 3.5%; and increase total personal income by more than $440 billion.
Reuters
December 4, 2020
The FPUC program expired on July 31, 2020. It provided eligible individuals with $600 per week on top of the weekly benefit amount they received from certain other UC programs, more than doubling what many Pennsylvanians would have received in traditional unemployment benefits alone. Economists believe that the U.S. economy weathered the coronavirus spikes in spring 2020 as well as it did in large part because of the additional income this program supplied to unemployed individuals and their families. We know that these dollars flow directly back into the economy. People used FPUC benefits to pay their rent or mortgage, to buy their groceries, and to continue discretionary consumer spending which helped support our fragile economy. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that renewing FPUC would drive the unemployment rate lower throughout 2021. On the other hand, the Economic Policy Institute estimated that ending FPUC has resulted in the loss of millions of jobs that would have otherwise been preserved by the boost in spending that FPUC provided. FPUC payments have added $16,113,457,128 to Pennsylvania’s economy between May 7, 2020, and December 1, 2020. Pennsylvanians have been struggling since FPUC expired on July 31, 2020.
Governor Tom Wolf
December 4, 2020
However, the above argument against the increase misses some important counterpoints. The purchasing power of the minimum wage is 17% less than it was in 2009 (Economic Policy Institute, June 17, 2019). In addition, the wage has not been adjusted to the increase in productivity and/or technical change over a period of time. The resulting increase in demand for labor due to productivity gains would absorb the increase in the number of workers attracted by higher wage, hence no unemployment. In addition, labor economists have argued that when workers are paid a wage rate that they deem to be fair, they are more loyal to their employers (thus decreasing turnover cost), work hard and increase productivity. Thus, the increase in productivity, labor force participation and increases in consumption expenditures would increase economic growth.
Standard Examiner
December 4, 2020