According to the Economic Policy Institute, a non-profit, non-partisan think tank, this has historically been true. The higher number of African Americans working in public sector employment has meant higher rates of job loss due to the economic recession, the think tank reports.
US News and World Report
November 13, 2012
America has added 5 million jobs since February 2010, when employment hit its Great Recession low. But the nation still needs to add another 9 million jobs just to get back to pre-recession unemployment levels, according to data crunched by the Economic Policy Institute.
CNNMoney
November 13, 2012
Even as the labor market slowly improves, the prospects for young workers remain difficult. More than half of recent high school graduates are underemployed, as are nearly one in five recent college graduates, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Washington Post
November 9, 2012
“If you look at this out of context, it’s a solid report,” said Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “If you’re looking in the context of the recession, it’s not what we need to dig us out of this huge hole.”
She estimated that the United States needs to create 9 million jobs to fill in the shortfall created by the downturn, and that, at this rate, the nation would not return to pre-recession unemployment rates until 2020.
The Washington Post
November 5, 2012
“Employment growth has kicked up a notch,” said Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute. Still, she noted, at a pace of 170,000 new jobs a month, the economy wouldn’t return to the pre-recession unemployment rate until the end of the decade.
“We need it to kick up a lot more notches,” she said.
Los Angeles Times
November 5, 2012
HEIDI SHIERHOLZ, ECONOMIST, ECONOMIC POLICY INST.: I think the key message there is that employment growth has been taken up a notch. Over
the last three months we’ve added 170,000 jobs on average. That’s a little bit better than what we’ve been seeing. That is enough over the long haul
to bring the unemployment rate down, but slowly.
Nightly Business Report
November 5, 2012
And for many Americans, that difference can be crucial. Some 60 percent of Americans 65 and older depend on Social Security for the majority of income, according to an Economic Policy Institute study published last year.
CNBC
November 5, 2012
EPI Vice President Ross Eisenbrey underscored to Huffington Post’s Nate Hindman the devastating financial impact natural disasters, which often lead to closed businesses and lost wages, can have on non-salaried employees who depend on hourly wages to make ends meet. “If the business closes because of the storm, employers don’t have to pay non-salaried workers for lost wages. And if the business is open, but the worker can’t make it into work, employers are also not required to pay for lost wages. And in most cases, they won’t.”
The Huffington Post
November 5, 2012
This point of contention is not to pit one hard-working American against another. The shift towards a clean, green economy would create more healthy, safe, family-supporting jobs. A recent report from the Economic Policy Institute found that greener industries grow faster than the overall economy, so further investment in the clean economy will continue to generate a greater number of sustainable jobs that cannot be outsourced.
The Christian Science Monitor
November 5, 2012
“If the unemployment rate is going to rise, this is the way we want it to happen,” said Heidi Shierholz, labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank.
CNNMoney
November 5, 2012