OnLabor

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Tag:unemployment

April 2, 2020
News & Commentary

Maxwell Ulin

6.6 million people signed up for state unemployment benefits last week, according to Department of Labor data released this morning. As EPI notes, today’s earth-shattering number—over double last week’s record-breaking 3.3. million jobless claims—is likely to prove a better indicator of the country’s economic outlook than Friday’s jobs’ report. Medium-term projections look even grimmer: in […]

States Must Expand and Better Communicate UI Benefits Amid Pandemic

Mar 27, 2020 Niki Rubin and Jason Salgado

Last week, a record 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits to make ends meet as the COVID-19 pandemic spurs mass layoffs. In Pennsylvania, 70,000 people filed for unemployment insurance in a single day, and Minnesota received 2,000 claims per hour. These numbers will likely only worsen in the weeks to come. Yet […]

March 24, 2020
News & Commentary

Jon Levitan

Uber is using the COVID-19 pandemic to try to persuade the federal government to adopt its position that its drivers are not employees under labor and employment law. In a letter sent to President Trump and other political leaders, Uber CEO Dana Khosrowshahi requested federal assistance for drivers who have lost work due to the […]

March 16, 2020
News & Commentary

Mackenzie Bouverat

New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo tweeted Sunday requesting that private businesses issue work-from-home orders where practicable (but also indicated that the state would consider “mandatory measures” should be businesses fail to cooperate). Many private businesses have voluntarily instituted policies aimed at reducing workplace exposure to the virus. Several technology and energy companies have directed […]

January 17, 2020
News & Commentary

Vail Kohnert-Yount

Working-class candidates are making personal and financial sacrifices to run for office, despite campaign guidelines specifically intended to make it easier for them to quit their jobs and run. A 2002 Federal Election Commission rule permits candidates running in a general election to pay themselves salaries from their campaign contributions at a per-diem rate equal […]

October 7, 2019
News & Commentary

Lolita DePalma

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in three cases that turn on whether Title VII’s protections against sex discrimination extend to anti-LGBTQ discrimination. In anticipation of the argument, NBC News published the stories of transgender employees who have faced job discrimination. According to the National Center for Transgender Equality’s 2015 U.S. Transgender […]

July 15, 2019
News & Commentary

Lolita DePalma

On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal explored the disconnect between the current record-low unemployment rate and wage stagnation. Theoretically, a low unemployment rate should lead to wage inflation because employers need to boost pay to attract new employees. However, wages have failed to rise as the unemployment rate has decreased. This has led economists to […]

July 1, 2019
News & Commentary

Lolita DePalma

The New York Times spotlighted a conflict within the labor movement over how unions should secure greater rights for Uber and Lyft drivers. S.E.I.U. has been meeting with Uber and Lyft to discuss the companies’ proposal to maintain the drivers’ status as independent contractors but allow the union to represent the drivers’ interests on certain […]

March 5, 2019
News & Commentary

Bibeka Shrestha

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. ruled Monday that the Trump administration illegally prevented the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from collecting more robust pay data from employers. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan found that the Office of Management and Budget’s decision to stay an Obama-era regulation providing for the collection of such pay data was […]

December 7, 2018
News & Commentary

Jenny Braun

This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly jobs report: unemployment remains at 3.7% for the third month, and the U.S. added 155,000 nonfarm jobs. Reactions are mixed; while the report is “weaker than expected,” it is also a sign of an expansive and overall healthy economy, note commentators in the New York […]

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OnLabor

Law. Workers. Organizing.

OnLabor is a blog devoted to workers, unions, and their politics. We interpret our subject broadly to include the current crisis in the traditional union movement (why union decline is happening and what it means for our society); the new and contested forms of worker organization that are filling the labor union gap; how work ought to be structured and managed; how workers ought to be represented and compensated; and the appropriate role of government — all three branches — in each of these issues.

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April 2, 2020

States Must Expand and Better Communicate UI Benefits Amid Pandemic

March 24, 2020

March 16, 2020

January 17, 2020

October 7, 2019

July 15, 2019

July 1, 2019

March 5, 2019

December 7, 2018