With the recent and debilitating April Jobs Report released by the US Labor Department the figures gave a jolt, but one not entirely unexpected, by most economists, but nevertheless ultimately shocking the nation with the worst unemployment record, reaching back to nearly 65 plus years ago
Despite the bad news, it’s safe to assume that most people know that this was the fault of the pandemic of Covid 19 and its deleterious effect on the American economy, now mostly shuttered, as a result of shelterin place orders by state leaders..
While most have dwelled on the 20.5 million people who have lost jobs in April, many others are also unaware that the marquee rate as well call it, or the banner unemployment rate, as many see it, of 15 percent, is actually less than the household survey rate, called the U6 rate that has shown a whopping 20 percent unemployment rate.
Conjoined to this bad news is that many state governments are still under the stay at home orders, by their governors, and as reported earlier, some GOP governors have given orders to reopen some businesses, but others have not, and there are indeed many, such as Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who have stayed the course, out of an abundance of caution, and have said that they will let the data speak for themselves before going further.
They have, in turn, faced intense opposition and noisy demonstrations, and some state officials, as in Michigan, have had to deal with armed protestors facing down the legislators in the state capital of Lansing. A recent death threat against Whitmer has generated even more concern.
Some protestors are saying that these governors are anti constitutionalists, and have over extended their authority while still others, have shown a hidden political agenda of strongly anti Democrat stance , a move detailed by the Chicago Tribune, recently; and one that shows the not quite unseen hand of the GOP.
Despite these alarming trends, what seems to be left unsaid, in many instances, is what will America look like, even if the stay at home orders were suddenly lifted tomorrow?
For most observers, us included, it will be a changed landscape with far less independent and small businesses, and one where many office workers, and others, will still be working from home, either in the family den, or at the dining room table.
Some may even prefer it that way as a road to lead a less stressful life in America’s largest cities: New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, has become increasingly unaffordable and with increasingly high rents, many younger workers are wondering whether to relocate to less urban areas.
Federal leadership has waffled between assembling a task force, and then announcing plans to disband it, only to have it stay, and many are bemoaning the lack of a consistent approach to fighting the pandemic, from the White House.
Adding to this is the fact that President Trump recently recommended that people inject themselves with Lysol to rid themselves of the virus, a dangerous recommendation, that was later retracted..
With testing and contact tracing at lower levels across the nation, those states that do reopen parks, restaurants, and the like will have reduced attendance, coupled with stringent adherence to social distancing, and in some cases, masked servers, leading to the further demise of independent restaurants, and even more applications for unemployment.
Take for example, restaurants in Hammond, Ind, south of Chicago, where diners are at 50 percent capacity, with tables spaced well apart, not exactly a recipe for an increase in profits.
Recalling that some in the restaurant associations had predicted that only one third will survive, mainly the big players, with corporate backing, for many areas, but especially urban areas, will see one of the more salient aspects of city living, operating well below previous levels.
Small businesses in America account for 61 percent of employers in the food service sector, along with hotels, according to the 2017 Census Bureau; and that also creates a void for single mothers, college students, and people of color.
That occurrence alone adds to the near 4,000 unemployment claims in recent weeks. And, as is now well known, the Paycheck Protection Program was swiftly drained in its first inception, in mid April, and now some are also warning that the recent addition of $310 billion may also not be enough.
Mired in well intentioned actions by Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, the initial conduit through banks, and vague rules, allowed some large corporations, with close ties to banks to receive money that they did not need, causing Mnuchin to threaten legal action, if they don’t surrender the funds.
Pritizker in Illinois has planned a five part phase in for reopenings, amidst the clamor of noisy oppositions, and some feel that the state is fighting with one hand tied behind its back, without proper help from the federal government; and, there are some who predict, even with restrictions, and especially without a vaccine that the economy, there might not be a fully functioning US economy till the beginning of 2021.
In fact there are now predictions that there will be at least an increase of 130,000 cases across the country by August, and possibly further.
On Wednesday for a partly virtual address to a Senate Panel that haste would make waste of many lives if reopening was enacted too soon, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who said, “if we do not respond in an adequate way when the fall comes, given that it is without a doubt that there will be infections that will be in the community, then we run the risk of having a resurgence.”
Concerns as we have noted before, along with others in the media, are suffering an intense debate on which business will survive, and which won’t, and on the corporate scale, nationally, there are some large retail giants filing for bankruptcy such as J. Crew, and Gold’s Gym, who have seen both sales and memberships drain to unsustainable levels.
Yet, In another vein, albeit ironic, there has been an increased sales revenue from Amazon, that “rose 26 % from a year earlier to $75.5 billion in the three months through March,” reported the Wall Street Journal, in a not too surprising move with most retailers closed, that are deemed nonessential.
In a darker move many companies have used the virus to lay off workers that were contemplating, and in some instances, voting to unionize, and as The New York Times has reported, this has happened with Trader Joe’s, despite a company denial, and also truck drivers with Cort Furniture Rental, not surprising considering the anti labor movement that has spread, all the way, in recent months, to the United States Supreme Court.
These moves have also spread to white collar workers such as journalists at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, who were peeled off weeks ago, and replaced with content from the non unionized labor from cleveland.com, a move also denied by management who said they merely wanted to expand coverage to suburban areas.
It seems a safe bet, that when the American economy comes back from its public health exile, that we will be seeing a much smaller, non unionized workforce, that will still retain much of the flavor of present times, but in a dramatically different form.
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