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We need to take a “deep breath,” advises Economic Policy Institute economist Heidi Shierholz, to digest the numbers.
- More than 24 million workers filing for unemployment?
- Over nine million workers losing health insurance?
- Eighty percent of school children whose teachers are not proficient in using computers to teach?
These crazy large figures can be hard to process. In blog posts and media appearances, EPI’s experts put the numbers in context, explaining what they tell us about the breadth of distress and the policies needed to address that distress.
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From March 15 to April 18, more than 24 million U.S. workers applied for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits—not counting would-be applicants frozen out of overwhelmed systems. That 24 million‒plus number translates to more than one in seven workers losing their jobs, and it means that there were five times as many workers applying for unemployment in the last five weeks as there were during the worst five-week stretch of the Great Recession, notes EPI’s Heidi Shierholz in her blog post. Providing $500 billion in aid to states to expand use of work-sharing and support other programs is but one of many steps Congress still needs to take to alleviate the economic pain, she says. Read the blog post »
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In the last five weeks, more than 24 million workers applied for unemployment insurance benefits
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Media coverage on unemployment claims
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Mapping weekly unemployment insurance (UI) claims by state, EPI’s Jori Kandra and Julia Wolfe find initial claims tripling in Connecticut, Florida, and West Virginia for the week ending April 18. Of the 10 states with the largest percent increases in UI claims in the week ending April 18 relative to the pre‒coronavirus period, eight were in the South. Read the blog post »
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Big job loss numbers mean big losses in employer-sponsored health insurance. EPI’s Ben Zipperer and Josh Bivens looked at the estimated 45.7% of workers in industries experiencing unemployment claims who get health coverage through their job and translated that to 9.2 million workers at high risk of losing their employer-provided health insurance during the four-week stretch from March 15 to April 11. A map in their blog post breaks down the health coverage losses by state. To lessen these terrifying losses, policymakers should extend Medicare and Medicaid to people losing their jobs during the pandemic and—long-term—replace our current inefficient system of tying health insurance benefits to employment, they write. Read the blog post »
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In his livestream interview on Yahoo Finance, Josh Bivens explained that the widespread loss of health insurance will “drag on the recovery” as people spend more of their income on health care costs. Policymakers can help fix this by opening enrollment for Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges, extending Medicaid to people who have lost their insurance, and introducing a public option in the ACA exchanges. Watch the video »
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Media coverage on the loss of health insurance
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EPI analysis of data from the most comprehensive study of primary and secondary education in the country shows that 15.6% of students don’t have a computer or laptop for school work, 48.7% don’t have experience using their home internet for school work, and 80.7% don’t have teachers who rated themselves already proficient in using computers in instruction. For students who are poor, those shares are 23.7% without a computer/laptop, 53.6% without experience doing school work online at home, and 79.7% without teachers who rated themselves already proficient in using computers in instruction. Read the blog post »
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To stabilize the economy, Congress should replace the failing Payroll Protection Program with direct paycheck support, write EPI President Thea Lee, Congressional Progressive Caucus Center Executive Director Liz Watson, and Roosevelt Institute CEO Felicia Wong in an op-ed in Time. Direct paycheck support policies have already become standard in the Netherlands, Australia, Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. | Why the U.S. Government Should be Guaranteeing Paychecks
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EPI’s Heidi Shierholz urged political leaders to let public health officials, not economists like her, decide when and how to reopen the economy. “Research shows that places that commit to aggressive social distancing measures earlier and longer do not have worse economic outcomes during pandemics—if anything, they grow faster once the threat of the virus is over than places that enacted measures too late or repealed them too early,” she told The Guardian. | When is the Right Time to Reopen the US Economy? Our Panelists’ Verdict
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EPI President Thea Lee warned that reopening the economy without adequate testing would especially harm “low-wage workers, women, people of color, immigrants, and the elderly” who are “concentrated in the riskiest jobs, with the least financial cushion, and the least likely to have employer-provided benefits or protections.” | Liberty or Death is a Perilous Policy for a Pandemic
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In her op-ed in the New York Times, Violet Moya describes how she and her fellow part-time workers suffer from a second-class status that extends from a lack of benefits to unstable schedules to being paid 30% less per hour than full-timers doing the same thing—a pay penalty documented by EPI. | Sephora Never Valued Workers Like Me
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“Deep breath”: Digesting and dealing with the COVID economy
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