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A note from EPI's Lora Engdahl: The news is changing so fast it can be hard to keep up, but there’s one big question: Are we making progress addressing the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, or are we falling behind?
EPI’s experts have been helping me gain a more solid footing on what’s really happening, with their clear-eyed analyses of what is going right and what’s going wrong, and what we still need to do.
Read on to find out:
- What are the implications as unemployment insurance claims spike
- Which states are most at risk as state job loss estimates mount and health needs expand
- How “politics and profits” are blocking the path to broad production of needed medical equipment
- What policymakers shouldn’t leave out of the final stimulus bill
- Why online voting is NOT a far-fetched idea but a way to help safeguard our democracy
- What farmers and policymakers need to do now as farm employment ramps up for summer
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As EPI’s Heidi Shierholz notes, the 1,500% jump in unemployment insurance (UI) claims over the last two weeks—to 3.3 million last week—is unprecedented, and the graph below showing the spike will indeed take your breath away. Adds Shierholz, “This is just the tip of the iceberg,” with an estimated 14 million workers who could lose their jobs by the end of the summer. Read the statement »
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Unemployment insurance claims jumped nearly 1,500% in two weeks
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No state will be spared job losses as the U.S. economy loses an estimated 14 million jobs by this summer, according to EPI’s state-by-state breakdown of job loss. While the $2 trillion stimulus package set for a House vote could help mitigate some losses, widespread job losses are still expected, with some states especially hard hit, according to EPI’s Julia Wolfe and David Cooper. States like Nevada, Montana, and Hawaii will lose the most jobs as a share of overall state employment because leisure, hospitality, and retail sector workers make up large shares of their workforces. Hunter Blair and Jaimie Worker’s look at Southern states identifies specific risks these states face. These risks include the absence of paid sick leave policies, state prohibitions on local jurisdictions extending paid leave, and the fact that nine of the 14 states still have not expanded Medicaid. Policymakers must address these risks to protect workers and their families, Blair and Worker say. Read the state job loss and Southern states blog posts »
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“Politics and profits” are why President Trump is not using the Defense Production Act (DPA) to ramp up production of urgently needed medical equipment, explains EPI’s Rob Scott. Under the DPA, Trump could make factories manufacture masks, gloves, and ventilators and sell them at a 10% profit, but that would aggrieve the Chamber of Commerce, whose member companies are now free to “maximize profits by playing desperate states, cities, and medical facilities off against each other.” Read the blog post »
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The House is expected to vote Friday on a $2 trillion stimulus package to help the United States through one of the worst economic downturns in our history. While EPI will publish an analysis when the bill is passed, EPI’s Josh Bivens and Heidi Shierholz have been monitoring the legislation as it moves through Congress. Their most recent analysis highlighted glaring flaws that will need to be fixed in future legislation if not fixed in the current bill. Among the shortcoming are weak mechanisms for ensuring that firms getting bailout funds retain their workers, lack of protections for workers from being forced to work in unsafe conditions, and arbitrary end dates to relief and recovery aid. As EPI’s Elise Gould has argued, aid should keep flowing until the employment rate—the share of the adult population with a job—is where we want it to be. Using the unemployment rate as a trigger won’t count the “many laid-off workers making the rational decision not to search for work until they get the all-clear from public health authorities.” Read the blog post »
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As election officials across the country push to expand mail-in-voting to protect voters and poll workers, they should not overlook online voting, advises EPI’s Jhacova Williams. “While online voting may seem farfetched,” Williams says, it’s already been deployed in some form by officials in Greater Seattle and West Virginia. Online voting could dramatically increase voter turnout, and its risks could be managed, if the use of online forms by the U.S. Census Bureau is a case in point. Read the blog post »
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“Policies implemented in response to the coronavirus could affect the pool of farmworkers available, specifically school closures and changes in visa processing for H-2A farmworkers—migrant workers hired to fill temporary or seasonal agriculture jobs lasting less than one year,” according to an EPI report by Daniel Costa and Philip Martin. In addition to providing adequate safety equipment and implementing social distancing measures to keep workers safe, employers should increase their recruitment efforts among unemployed workers and consider paying more hours in overtime wages to their current workforce if they face a labor shortage. Read the report »
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EPI Director of Immigration Law Daniel Costa is quoted in a KQED article that cites his recent research on protections for farmworkers during the coronavirus, saying, “In California, there’s about to be 1.6 million unemployed workers. Will those workers take those jobs? It’s an experiment that’s about to happen.” | Farmworkers Can’t Pick Crops Remotely. How Can They Stay Safe?
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Thursday’s news that more than three million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, a total far higher than in any previous week in the modern history of the United States, has been greeted with surprising equanimity by the nation’s political leaders. Read more »
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A coronavirus economy: Who will get left behind if we don’t act now
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