The affect of the virus on the America workforce is the worst since the 1930’s Great Depression….
The virus has hit America harder and longer then any other county so far…
It is gonna take a while for jobs to come back and some of those jobs are not coming back as companies embraced race on-line ways of doing business and consumer’s lack the money to buy nonessential products …
Thew virus hesitations among consumers will also work against a country trying to crawl back while the virus slows in New York…But continues to infect more in some other places….
All this IS on Donald Trump’s watch, even as he tries ignore it….
The U.S. lost 20.5 million jobs in April amid the economic devastation of the coronavirus pandemic as the steepest recorded surge in American unemployment nearly wiped out a decade of job gains, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The unemployment rate spiked to 14.7 percent from 4.4 percent in March, according to the April jobs report, as thousands of businesses closed and laid off or furloughed workers they could no longer afford to employ. The one-month rise in the unemployment rate between March and April is the largest ever recorded by the BLS.
April’s staggering job losses also shattered records for both the largest one-month decline in jobs — roughly 2 million in September 1945 — and the highest level of unemployment ever recorded by the BLS, 10.8 percent in November 1982.
The jobs lost in April alone are almost 2.5 times the 8.7 million jobs lost during the Great Recession and nearly equal to the 22.4 million jobs gained in the decade of recovery that followed.
Between March’s revised loss of 870,000 jobs and April’s record-breaking plunge, the U.S. has lost roughly 21.4 million jobs since the spread of COVID-19 upended American life and derailed a resilient economy.
While 18.1 million of the 20.5 million jobs lost in April were due to temporary layoffs, according to the BLS, the steep economic toll of the pandemic may force many of those employers to close for good.
“Unfortunately, for many of those in the job market, the question becomes whether these jobs will return and these businesses reopen, which could have devastating and far-reaching economic effects,” wrote Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at S&P Global Ratings, in a Thursday research note.
Bovino estimated that 90 percent of the U.S. population has been forced to live under some form of stay-at-home order as state and local governments take desperate measures to slow the spread of COVID-19….
Note….
While people are out of work in increasing numbers?
The media has been reporting that most Americans are worried about reopening the country…
For now?
Weekly Jobless benefits and $1,200 check seem to be carrying some of them….
Some will be uneasy about going back to work, which will slow the recovery….
The new treatment drug is not widely available and a vaccine is still not here…
Almost 3 out of 4 Americans have concerns that the country is reopening its economy too fast amid the coronavirus pandemic, a new poll from the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Project finds.
When asked about social distancing restrictions being lifted, 71 percent of those surveyed said that they are worried that the restrictions are being lifted too quickly, while 29 percent said that restrictions aren’t being lifted quickly enough.
As calls for the country to reopen continue and grow in strength, around half of all states have rolled back their social distancing restrictions at least to some extent, with states allowing businesses to reopen their doors to varying degrees. Other states have maintained their stay-at-home orders and other restrictions.
“There’s a tendency for people to focus on people who are very loud right now,” Robert Griffin, research director for the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group, said. “But there’s … a real patience that pervades most of American action.”
Along party lines, 83 percent of Democrats said they were worried about loosening restriction too quickly while 60 percent of Republicans said the same thing….
Let’s be clear about the “treatment” drug….
That’s not for general distribution .
It is for hospitalized patients and must be taken intravenously.It appears to hasten the recovery period by a few days.
It will have no effect upon the economy however.
I disagree on the no effect on the public….
Treatment drug WILL habour a perception ….
The report is over a million doses are available…
But ALREADY?
because Trump’s FDA is involved?
There are problems in distributions
Trump economic advisor Kevin Hassett says that next months unemployment number may be as high as 25%.
A number that high ,while Trump runs around mouthing off about a “recovery” and Jared Kushner says that the economy will be roaring back come July?
Wont be good for anybody, certainly not for a President running for re-election.
Look for a weekend of rage Tweets.
I’m sure Trump is itching to golf again but the optics would be terrible. That he can’t will make him that much more irritable.
Trump’s new weekend hang out is Camp David…
The Trump coverup effort continues….
Trump IS SURE to use the treatment drug as something HE got done…
It WILL be played up to his 40%er’s…
Trump again doing the right thing for Biden…
President Trump said that he would help Joe Biden gain access to rapid tests for the novel coronavirus if his campaign asked for it, The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “Yes, 100 percent. I would love to see him get out of the basement so he can speak. Every time he talks it’s like a good thing.”
Politicalwire…
In other words–no comfort for the 77,000 dead and unemployment numbers highest since the Great Depression. Just snarky comments about his political rival. What an ass!
Hi, Scott, I saw the Mayor of St Louis on TV last night (either BBC World News America or the PBS News Hour).
While on the Pacific, Northeastern and some of the Great Lakes states, it’s the governors (apparently supported by as much as 80% of their constituents) who are resisting this deadly Premature Reopening “movement”, it seems that in the Inland and Southern states, it’s the mayors resisting on behalf of their citizens against clueless or spineless governors giving into the White House, the Trump campaign, the reactionary media, the toxic social media, and the MAGA-wearing heads in the sand.
Dave,
Yeah I have been impressed with Mayor Lyda Krewson’s stance and communication on reopening. St. Louis city is an independent entity (I think Baltimore may be the only other large US city independent of a county). St. Louis County is mostly inner suburban. The county executive Sam Page has been similarly cautious on reopening as our mayor has been,
The exurban and rural counties of the state are going forward with opening much more haphazardly and Gov. Parson seems to just want the local governments decide. Parson is still the favorite to win a full term of his own, but he doesn’t seem to want the job honestly. Some have said he is acting like he wants to go back to being a rural sheriff. Which is what he did before his stint in the state senate and as Lt. Governor.
Yeah the treatment is to keep you alive if you wind up in the hospital. Most don’t want to go to the hospital in the first place so even in places that are “opening up” the demand to pack restaurants, movie theaters, concert halls, amusement parks, etc. will just not be there.
The MAGA hats on my local news Facebook page are clearly panicking over the almost 15% unemployment though. Clamoring to open everything up now to get the numbers down (unemployment numbers–not infection numbers–those are of less importance to Trumpublicans).
Ironically it is the “freedom” that these protesters claim is being taken away from them that will keep the economy from rebounding. In a free society we can’t force consumer demand. And that is what drives our free market economy.
That’s correct.
Since polls consistently show that most people still think it’s too early to reopen ,the effect upon consumer spending is still going to be down for the near future and the expected “second wave”(although it is unclear to me that the first save is even over) may have an even more deleterious effect .
BLS press release (in plaintext) here:
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
and in PDF with full charts and tables here:
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf