New US jobless claims once again exceed one million
28 August 2020
More than one million workers in the United States filed new unemployment claims last week as the social and economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic continues to punish workers while the stock market reaches new highs.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1,006,000 workers filed initial claims for jobless benefit in the week ending August 22, slightly down from the 1,104,000 the week before. The total number of people claiming ongoing benefits in all programs for the week ending August 8 was 27 million. By contrast, there were 1.6 million claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2019.
The Labor Department said the official unemployment rate had fallen from 10.1 percent to 9.9 percent for the week ending August 15. Only those who receive regular state benefits (14.5 million) are counted and not the 12.5 million receiving federal assistance for the self-employed and gig workers. If both figures were factored in out of the US labor force of 159.9 million, the unemployment rate would be 17 percent. Even this is an underestimation since it does not count the millions who are jobless and getting no unemployment aid or who have been forced to work part-time.
The territories and states with the highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending August 8 were in Hawaii (19.8), Puerto Rico (19.2), Nevada (17.3), California (16.1), New York (15.4), Connecticut (13.6), Louisiana (13.5), the Virgin Islands (12.8), Georgia (12.6), and Massachusetts (12.2). New Jersey, Florida, New York and Texas saw the highest number of first-time claims the week ending August 15.
In comments on the economy, President Trump boasted Thursday that the “country is doing very good,” adding, “We’re on a V, could even be a Super-V,” referring to the supposed V-shaped rapid plunge and recovery of the economy.
The reckless drive to reopen the economy added some 9.3 million jobs to the economy over the last three months. But this initial job increase, less than half of the 22 million wiped out in March and April, began to peter out last month as some businesses reclosed due to the surge of COVID-19 cases, and a swift rebound is not expected.
About 33 percent of the employees put on furlough in March were laid off for good by July, according to Gusto, a payroll and benefits firm, and economists predict that as many as half of all temporary layoffs could become permanent.
“The longer this drags out, the more the shape of the recovery will look like the Great Recession,” Dante DeAntonio of Moody’s Analytics told USA Today, adding that he expects unemployment to remain high at 9.5 percent by year’s end and 8.1 percent by the end of 2021.
Corporations are also exploiting the crisis to accelerate longstanding restructuring plans. This week, several companies joined the list of downsizing firms. These include:
- San Francisco-based Salesforce, the cloud software giant, sent out layoff notices Tuesday to nearly 1,000 workers, the day after company executives lifted their full-year earnings outlook and posted a record $5.15 billion in sales for the most recent quarter. The company, led by billionaire Marc Benioff, who made a “no layoff pledge” in March, said it expects to top profits figures in the current quarter in which the layoffs are unfolding. As of early July, more than 25,500 employees of Silicon Valley start-ups, including Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, and Groupon had lost their jobs, the Wall Street Journal reported.
- Home goods retailer Bed, Bath & Beyond announced Tuesday that it was laying off 2,800 workers at its corporate headquarters and stores, “effective immediately,” as part of an “organizational realignment” to slash between $250 and $350 million annually and focus on its digital sales. Last month, the retailer said it would shut down roughly 200 stores over the next two years, increasing by fivefold store closing plans revealed in January.
- American Airlines said this week that it would eliminate another 19,000 jobs by October 1 if the company did not receive another tranche of corporate bailout money from the US government. The company, which has already forced 11,000 employees to take “voluntary separations,” spent $12 billion on stock buybacks and more than $1 billion in dividends over the past five years. Delta plans to lay off nearly 2,000 pilots and United Airlines has threatened to cut 36,000 jobs once the prohibition on layoffs included in the government bailout expires on October 1.
- Restaurant chain Ruby Tuesday is closing locations without even giving staff advanced warning. “If a store is shutting down permanently, Ruby Tuesday never, ever, ever, ever gives notice to anyone,” a current employee in Missouri, who has been with the company for 14 years, told Business Insider. “The district manager will call the general manager literally the night before and say, ‘Hey, you’re being shut down. Tonight is your last day of being open. Don't tell anyone until tomorrow.’”
Meanwhile, most small businesses that were able to qualify for the government’s Paycheck Protection Program have now run out of money, prompting a new wave of permanent layoffs. USA Today reported that 84 percent of small businesses have exhausted their PPP loans, up from 71 percent in July, according to a survey out this week from the National Federation of Independent Business.
While lower-paid workers are losing their jobs at about three times the rate of higher-wage employees, layoffs are hitting salaried employees able to work at home too. The “drop in overall employment that white-collar industries like real estate, information and professional and technology services have seen in five months is already on par with or worse than the hits they took during the Great Recession,” Politico recently reported.
It has now been a month since the $600-a-week federal unemployment payment was allowed to expire, and nothing has been done by the Democrats and Republicans to renew it. On the contrary, the economic desperation caused by this two-thirds or more reduction in weekly income for unemployed workers is being used by employers to pressure workers to return to unsafe factories, warehouses, offices and other workplaces
About 26.5 percent of adults either missed their last rent or mortgage payment or have either slight or no confidence that they can pay the next one, according to a recent survey by the US Census Bureau. More than a third expect someone in their household to lose employment income over the next four weeks, while 51.1 percent had already seen a loss in employment income, Forbes reported.
In addition to a wave of evictions and foreclosures due to the expiration of state moratoriums, tens of millions of households face the loss of gas, electricity and water service due to the expiration of state prohibitions on utility shutoffs by the end of September.
A new report by energy start-up Carbon Switch, cited by CNBC, said ten states had already let the prohibitions expire and throughout August and September 14 states will join them. Carbon Switch calculates that by October 1, about 76 million households will be without shutoff protections.
The report said 8 out of 10 of the nation’s biggest utility companies are planning to return to normal operations by September 15 and will start cutting off customers’ electricity and gas if the bills are overdue.
“There’s going to be a tidal wave of utility shutoffs,” Michael Thomas, founder and head researcher of Carbon Switch, told CNBC. “That’s because in some states, as many as a third of households are behind on payments. Typically, only about 7 percent to 9 percent of Americans are delinquent on their payments, he explained. “It’s just crazy by any measure.”
While tens of millions face Great Depression-like conditions, major corporations, like Disney, General Motors and Yelp, have already restored temporary pay cuts to corporate executives, which were announced earlier this year with great fanfare about “equal sacrifice” as they slashed jobs and cut pay.
The vast bulk of executive compensation comes from stock options. Driven by the rising stock market, CEO compensation rose to its highest level in seven years last year, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) recently reported, and is poised to rise again in 2020, despite the economic and social crisis. According to EPI, top executives at the largest US companies pocketed “an average of $21.3 million in realized compensation in 2019, setting the ratio of CEO-to-worker pay at 320 to 1, up from 293 to 1 in 2018 and more than five times as high as the 61-to-1 ratio in 1989.” Between 1978 and 2019, according to EPI’s analysis, CEO compensation, adjusted for inflation, rose 1,167 percent. By contrast, the typical worker’s compensation grew by only 13.7 percent over the past four decades.
Did Biden destroy his chances when he made this promise?
Joe Biden’s presidential run is pathetic
because it’s easy to see that his mind is giving out on him, something the
majority of voters recognize. Biden’s presidential run is also scary because
the hard leftists who surround him are using him as a Trojan Horse to advance
their destructive socialist policies.
It’s these puppet masters who have pushed
the formerly middle(ish)-of-the-road (and invariably wrong) politician to make
extremist promises. Most people tend to ignore or downplay Biden’s more radical
statements, seeing them as the kind of thing politicians say during
campaigns. One ask to ask, though, whether we can afford to ignore Biden’s
promise to use his executive office to shut down the entire country again
should scientists recommend it.
During the Democrat presidential
primaries, after the no-hopers dropped out, the remaining presidential
candidates ran the gamut from left to communist, with most closer to the
communist end. Biden claimed to be the moderate candidate in the race, and
that’s how the Democrats are trying to sell him to the general public. After
all, Joe’s been around since 1972, and he’s always been a Democrat stalwart,
unlike Bernie Sanders, who’s also been around forever, but as a communist
stalwart.
Nevertheless, throughout the campaign,
even while claiming to be a moderate, Biden has signed on to every radical idea
that the Democrat party has moved into the Overton window.
He’s gone so far left that even Bernie approves:
Sen. Bernie
Sanders said Joe Biden told him that he believes he can become the most
progressive president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
“The reason I
say that I think Biden has a chance to be the most progressive president since
FDR is that is exactly what Joe Biden said to me,” Sanders, a former
presidential candidate, said in an interview Wednesday on PBS’ “Amanpour &
Company.”
“He
understands the severity of this moment,” said Sanders.
To that end, Biden’s campaign has adopted
most of Sanders’s principles or scooched as close to them as possible. Given a
compliant Congress, Biden says that he would reinstate the public option of
Obamacare, aim for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 (so we can all
look like California), pay for college for families earning $125,000 or less
per year, go in big for racial (in)justice, and, grant mass amnesty to illegal aliens along with opening the borders.
Democrats appear willing to stomach all of these proposals.
The big question, though, is whether
Democrats can tolerate Biden’s most recent commitment. He insists that, if the
Wuhan virus doesn’t retreat and “the scientists” say so, he’ll use his
executive power to lock down the entire country all over again:
Democratic
presidential nominee Joe Biden said he would close the United States down over
the spread of the new virus from China if health experts recommended to do so.
“I would shut
it down; I would listen to the scientists,” Biden, a former vice president,
said in an interview with ABC News.
“I will be
prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives because we cannot get the
country moving, until we control the virus,” Biden added. “That is the
fundamental flaw of this administration’s thinking to begin with. In order to
keep the country running and moving and the economy growing, and people
employed, you have to fix the virus, you have to deal with the virus.”
That is an insane promise. It ignores the
fact that the virus has barely touched many states, while it raked through several poorly managed
(and densely populated) Democrat-run states. It also pretends that there are no
trade-offs for holding the virus at bay. People in Democrat states have watched
their economies collapse; businesses close; people die from depression,
suicide, substance abuse, and untreated diseases; their young people stop
learning; their restaurants close; and their cities empty of businesses and high
earners (aka, the entire tax base).
While leftists have been good little
soldiers for the first round of shutdowns, aided in part by their extreme lack of perspective about the risks associated with the
Wuhan virus, will they really be willing to become prisoners in their own homes
once again? Will they be willing to see their economies get destroyed so
badly that they can never recover? Will they accept all the unnecessary
deaths that flow from preventing virus deaths?
I want to answer those rhetorical
questions by saying, “I don’t think so.” Sadly, the left is so maddened by
Trump Derangement Syndrome, the best that I can say is, “I hope not.” What I really
hope to see happen is normal people vote in overwhelming numbers for Trump on
November 3. If that happens, the leftists and those suffering from Trump
Derangement Syndrome slink back into the shadows where they belong.
Bated
Breath for Barr's Big Break
By Erik Gregory and Todd Gregory
With
the reported guilty plea of Federal Bureau
of Investigation (FBI) lawyer Kevin Clinesmith to a false statement charge as
part of John Durham's Russia Hoax investigation, true conservatives are
celebrating the much heralded arrival of Attorney General (A.G.) William (Bill)
Barr, who, we are being promised, will round up the coup-plotters with dispatch
and bring a rain ruin to the anti-Trump cabal that engaged in the illegal
spying and sting operations against the president and his associates.
And
yet...and yet..Kevin Clinesmith? Not exactly a ringleader in the
anti-Trump cabal. And what of the instigators of this audacious plot
against the president (i.e., John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Joe
Biden, or Barack Obama to name but a few)? Thus far, Barr has
indicated no intention of prosecuting anyone beyond the low-hanging fruit of
Kevin Clinesmith and even publicly issued assurances to Barack Obama and Joe Biden that they have no
criminal culpability (to say nothing of Barr's exoneration of Andrew McCabe on
Valentine's Day). Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief
John Brennan was reportedly told by Durham that he was not a target (or even a subject) of
the Russia Hoax investigation. And it appears that Durham has not
even interviewed most of the principal figures central to the Russia
Hoax. While Barr and Durham should be applauded for finally taking
some judicial action, however limited, if Kevin "little fish" Clinesmith
is their biggest catch and the true ringleaders escape unscathed, we can be
assured these serial abuses of power will escalate under a Joe en
administration.
Consequence #1 — The DOJ Will Ensure a Two-Tiered Politicized
Justice System (Exclusively Targeting Conservatives and Protecting
Progressives): The DOJ began visibly putting its thumb on the scales of justice
in favor of fellow progressives and against conservatives during Obama's
reign. Examples are extensive, but to recap a few highlights, recall
the persecution of conservatives by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the
Sharyl Attkisson/James Rosen spy scandals and the shameless protection of
Hillary Clinton, who (along with several members of her staff) committed
multiple and flagrant felonies including lying to Congress and felony
dissemination of material classified at the highest security
levels. Out of these scandals, and more, how many progressive
Democrats were indicted and prosecuted? None. Under
Obama, the progressive DOJ was the quintessential "hometown referee"
for the Democrats. They blew the whistle on everything Republican
(including false allegations, like the Russia Hoax) and looked the other way,
every time, when Democrats committed real crimes (just ask Hillary Clinton
or Barack Obama). By some estimates, 97% of DOJ political donations went
to the Democratic Party. Republicans and conservatives, and soon even
moderates, are, or will shortly be, subject to a nearly impossible standard of
justice. With Biden's 2020 victory, the progressive Democrats will
cement their stranglehold on the DOJ, and the political persecution and
censorship of all future generations of Republicans (and, indeed, moderates) is
assured.
Consequence #2 — Escalating Federal Government Attacks against
Republicans and Conservatives: Progressive-dominated federal government
agencies will renew and escalate attacks against conservative organizations and
individuals in the confident knowledge that the politically aligned DOJ will
not hold them to account. The IRS (dominated by left-wing ideologues), among other
like-minded agencies (such as the CIA), under a Biden presidency, will be
emboldened to renew their attacks on Republicans and conservatives with
impunity (just as they did during the Obama years).
Consequence #3 — The Russia Hoax Investigation Will Be Dissolved
Immediately by President Biden.
BLOG EDITOR: HILLARY CLINTON SALTED INTO HER PHONY CLINTON
FOUNDATION FAMILY SLUSH FUND $165
MILLION IN DIRTY RUSSIAN BRIBES FOR SERVICES PROVIDED.
Consequence #4 — The DOJ Will Disenfranchise United States
Citizens by Enforcing Open Borders: Under Biden, the DOJ (and
the John Roberts–led Supreme Court) will use the awesome power of the law to
enforce open borders and grant amnesty to millions of illegal migrants, which
will ensure many millions of new voters for the progressive Democrats (to say
nothing of breaking the social welfare state at U.S. taxpayer
expense). This will result in the widespread disenfranchisement of
United States citizens, whose votes will be essentially
nullified. The DOJ and Supreme Court will be all too happy to ensure
Democratic hegemony for the foreseeable future, but along with the new voters
will come criminals, gangs, smuggling, disease, and an endless supply of
illegal drugs (effectively making the United States an open toilet for the rest
of the world). The rich and happy public "self"-servants
of the DOJ and Supreme Court will not suffer the consequences of their
disastrous policies from behind their gated and secure
communities. We will.
Consequence #5 — A One-Party United States: Owing to Consequence
#4, we will live in a one-party (Democrat) country. Diversity of
thought and policy will no longer be tolerated. Those that stray
from progressive orthodoxy will be targeted for destruction by the awesome and
unchecked powers of the DOJ.
Consequence #6 — Persecution of Christians (and Rigorous
Protection of Non-Christian Faiths): If you burn a Koran, the DOJ will arrest you
and charge you with a hate crime. If you burn a Bible, you won't
be. It's that simple, and it helps explain why the DOJ has taken no
steps to protect churches even while they are being actively targeted for
desecration during the riots. If mosques were being burned down, be
assured that the DOJ would arrive in force with guns drawn. If
churches are being burned down, the DOJ is cool with that.
Consequence #7 — Election Interference and Election Rigging Will
Be Assured in a Manner Favoring Progressive Democrats: Mail-in voting,
already so rife with fraud, along with so-called ballot-harvesting, will be
enthusiastically supported (and enforced) by the progressive-friendly
DOJ. Progressive judges called to adjudicate these matters will invariably
side with their political allies over the rule of law. It's an open
joke that Republican voters who die often keep right on voting — as Democrats.
Conclusion: This is a pivotal moment for the A.G.'s office,
and Bill Barr needs to consider the legacy that he will be leaving future
generations. The seven consequences listed merely scratch the
surface in terms of how a progressive Democrat administration will wield the
awesome powers of the DOJ as a transformative agent to terrorize and extinguish
(conservative) political opponents and ensure permanent progressive Democrat
hegemony. Conservatives like Bill Barr, among many others, still
naïvely believe in the equal and transparent application of the rule of law, a
belief that is in no way reciprocated by their progressive Democrat colleagues
at the DOJ. To the progressive Democrat, using the awesome power of
the law to target morally inferior conservatives is a solemn obligation and
duty. Expecting a progressive Democrat to adhere to the law and
engage in fair play is a fool's errand, a fallacy, wishful thinking, hopes and
prayers. We are dealing not with reasonable liberals from several decades
ago, but instead with power-crazed progressives who believe they have a mission
and mandate to destroy the political opposition.
If
Barr hoists the white flag in abject abeyance to the Deep State (as Jeff
Sessions did), then the dirty cops will have won. Conservatives like
Bill Barr will then deserve what's coming to them, but our children and
grandchildren don't, and they will be the ones who pay the
price. They will live forever in a political prison, under the boot
of the progressive Democrat DOJ, which stands ready to strike against
law-abiding conservatives — for being conservative, or being Caucasian, or
attending a Christian church, or whatever pretext the progressive left can
think of — while simultaneously protecting progressive Democrats who abuse
conservatives. Our grandchildren will curse our memory for the
government and nation we bequeath to them and the vulnerable, weakened position
in which we have left them.
It
has been said that fortune favors the bold, and the progressive Democrats at
the DOJ, and other federal agencies, have been oh, so bold in recent years,
wielding their awesome powers of terror against the political
opposition. If Barr's "answer" to this vast progressive
offensive is Kevin Clinesmith, then the progressive Democrats will have won the
final victory. Conservatives had better begin thinking in terms of
bending knee and tending sheep in servitude to the victorious progressive
Democrats.
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