California jobless filings for previous week also revised sharply
More than 2
million California residents have filed for unemployment in recent weeks,
according to a grim report released Thursday that suggests one out of every
nine workers in the state have recently lost their jobs.
“I have no
job, no interviews, nothing so far,” said Red Damir, a Redwood City resident
who was laid off recently when Ann’s Coffee Shop, a family-owned diner in Menlo
Park, closed its doors. “The shutdown may be necessary, but it’s hurting me.”
Unemployment
claims in the United States topped 6.6 million last week, marking the second
straight week that jobless claims in the nation were well above 6 million, the
U.S. Labor Department reported.
The report
is a forbidding new reminder of how the coronavirus has infected broad swaths
of the economy in the Bay Area, California, and nationwide.
“I normally
would have been working 35 hours a week, but now I am working 12 hours a week,
maybe less,” said Querta Miller, a San Jose resident who owns a housecleaning
business. With coronavirus social distancing rules in place, many people are
reluctant to have people come into the house for cleaning jobs, she said.
California
unemployment claims totaled more than 925,000 during the week that ended on
April 6, on top of the 1.06 million that filed claims in the state during the
week of March 28, and the 186,000 that filed for jobless benefits the week of
March 21.
The
unemployment claim totals in California for the week of March 28 were revised
significantly higher than the initial estimates.
All told,
the latest updates suggest that 2.17 million California residents have filed
for unemployment in the three most recent weeks surveyed by federal officials.
In just the
two most recent weeks, about 1.98 million people in California have filed for
jobless benefits, the Labor Department reported.
Jobless
claims in the United States totaled 6.61 million during the week that ended on
April 6, which added to the 6.87 million in unemployment claims that were filed
in the week ending on March 28. The jobless claims for the week of March 28
were revised higher from the initial estimates.
For the
first time in its 101-year history, the famed Pebble Beach Resort ceased operations
completely, which caused numerous workers in the restaurant, resort area,
retail, and caddy operations to lose their jobs.
“I looked
around for three weeks without work,” said Spencer Carr, a Pebble Beach
resident who was a caddy for five years at the golf course. “The whole resort
is closed now, the first time since 1919.”
Carr
eventually found work with Instacart, a high-tech retail delivery service whose
business has bloomed amid the coronavirus economic devastation. With a wife,
two children, and a third child on the way, Carr said he had little choice but
to find a steady job.
“You can
make $200 to $300 a day,” Carr said. “I pick up and deliver groceries for
people who are too scared or are unable to leave their house right now because
of the coronavirus. The demand, at least in my area, is through the roof.”
Michelle
Gabriel, a Pleasanton resident, has operated a dog-walking business for 20
years. Before the rise of the coronavirus, Gabriel was booked through the end
of summer with dog-walking assignments because of widespread summer vacation
plans.
“When
coronavirus hit, everything was shut down completely, people canceled their
vacation plans,” Gabriel said. “Now I have absolutely nothing. A lot of people
are afraid to travel. Job hunting is not going so well. It’s kind of scary.”
Fortunately,
Gabriel’s husband works with the Alameda County Assessor’s Office, so that has
helped offset the blow.
“We’re
getting by,” Gabriel said. “But things are going to have to pick up soon.”
Similarly,
MIller, the San Jose housecleaning company owner, said she has some money in
savings. But Miller knows the savings account will steadily dwindle and
eventually be depleted.
“It’s not a
lot of money,” Miller said. “I might have enough for two more months.”
The ongoing
surge in unemployment claims points to double-digit jobless rates for
California this spring that will likely be the highest on record in the state.
A report
released this week projected that unemployment would soar to 17 percent in the
Bay Area, 18.8 percent in California, and 15.3 percent in Santa Clara County by
May, according to an assessment by the Stockton-based Center for Business and
Policy Research.
One of the
key strategies in the war against the coronavirus is the ongoing sheltering in
place and social distancing endeavors as a prelude to the restoration of the
economy, said Patrick Kallerman, research director with the Bay Area Council
Economic Institute.
An array of
coronavirus-spawned shutdowns imposed by the state government and local agencies
has hobbled the economy in California and around the country.
“Hopefully we can flatten or smash the curve of
the virus, and then we can restart the economy,” Kallerman said. “This is
painful for a large number of Californians and Americans, but hopefully we can
get this over with.”
Bernie
Sanders: ‘Of Course’ Cheap Illegal Workers Drive Down U.S. Wages….WHY DOES HE
WANT AMNESTY AND WIDER OPEN BORDERS OTHER THAN TO BUY THE ILLEGALS’ VOTES???
Andrew
Harnik/AP Photo
14 Jan 2020326
3:30
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) admits
cheaper illegal alien workers drive down wages for America’s working and middle
class but continues to support amnesty for illegal aliens, decriminalization of
the United States-Mexico border, and throwing out President Trump’s “Buy
American, Hire American” executive order.
Sanders navigated through the issue
during an interview with the New
York Times, attempting to explain his previous statements where he
has admitted that opening
the U.S. border is detrimental to the nation-state and has slammed the concept
of hemispheric open borders.
During the exchange, Sanders says
“of course” cheaper illegal alien workers hired by businesses at “$5 an hour”
will “lower wages” for America’s working class, who are often looking for
entry-level jobs.
“Yeah, if you’re being paid $5 — if
you’re being paid $5 an hour, now of course it’s going to lower wages,” Sanders
said. “Why would I hire at a higher wage?”
Later in the interview, though,
Sanders backs away from immigration’s wage-suppression impact on Americans and
focuses on a $15 minimum wage — suggesting that illegal aliens be legalized and
paid the same wage as Americans.
“All I am saying is that if for
whatever reason, I’m paying you $5 an hour, okay,” Sanders said. “You don’t
think that’s going to lower the wages that she gets?”
Legal immigration levels, where 1.2
million mostly low-skilled legal immigrants and hundreds of thousands of
foreign visa workers are admitted to the country annually, have driven the
number of foreign born workers in the U.S. to its highest level since 1996. This is in
addition to the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who enter the country
every year.
Most immigrants to the U.S.
immediately begin competing for blue-collar and white-collar jobs against millions of Americans who
want full-time employment.
No
Labor Shortage: 11M Americans Out of Work, But All Want Full-Time Jobs https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/10/no-labor-shortage-11m-americans-out-of-work-but-all-want-full-time-jobs/ …
No Labor Shortage: 11M Americans Out of Work but Want
Full-Time Jobs
Extensive research by economists
like George Borjas and analyst Steven Camarota reveals that the country’s
current mass legal immigration system burdens U.S. taxpayers and America’s
working and middle class while redistributing about $500 billion in wealth
every year to major employers and newly arrived immigrants. Similarly, research
has revealed how Americans’ wages are crushed by the
country’s high immigration levels.
For every one percent increase in
the immigrant portion of American workers’ occupations, their weekly wages are
cut by about 0.5 percent, Camarota finds. This means the average native-born
American worker today has his weekly wages reduced by perhaps 8.75 percent
since 17.5 percent of the workforce is foreign born.
In a state like Florida, where
immigrants make up about 25.4 percent of the labor force, American workers have
their weekly wages reduced by about 12.5 percent. In California, where
immigrants make up 34 percent of the labor force, American workers’ weekly
wages are reduced by potentially 17 percent.
Likewise, every one-percent increase
in the immigrant portion of low-skilled U.S. occupations reduces wages by about
0.8 percent. Should 15 percent of low-skilled jobs be held by foreign-born
workers, it would reduce the wages of native-born American workers by perhaps
12 percent.
Report:
California’s Middle-Class Wages Rise by 1 Percent in 40 Years
Middle-class
wages in progressive California have risen by 1 percent in the last 40 years,
says a study by the establishment California Budget and Policy Center.
“Earnings for California’s
workers at the low end and middle of the wage scale have generally declined or
stagnated for decades,” says the report, titled “California’s Workers Are
Increasingly Locked Out of the State’s Prosperity.” The report continued:
In
2018, the median hourly earnings for workers ages 25 to 64 was $21.79, just 1%
higher than in 1979, after adjusting for inflation ($21.50, in 2018 dollars)
(Figure 1). Inflation-adjusted hourly earnings for low-wage workers, those at
the 10th percentile, increased only slightly more, by 4%, from $10.71 in
1979 to $11.12 in 2018.
The report admits that the
state’s progressive economy is delivering more to investors and less to
wage-earners. “Since 2001, the share of state private-sector [annual new
income] that has gone to worker compensation has fallen by 5.6 percentage
points — from 52.9% to 47.3%.”
In 2016, California’s Gross
Domestic Product was $2.6 trillion, so the 5.6 percent drop shifted $146
billion away from wages. That is roughly $3,625 per person in 2016.
The report notes that wages
finally exceeded 1979 levels around 2017, and it splits the credit between the
Democrats’ minimum-wage boosts and President Donald Trump’s go-go economy.
The 40 years of flat wages are
partly hidden by a wave of new products and services. They include almost-free
entertainment and information on the Internet, cheap imported coffee in
supermarkets, and reliable, low-pollution autos in garages.
But the impact of California’s
flat wages is made worse by California’s rising housing costs, the report says,
even though it also ignores the rent-spiking impact of the establishment’s
pro-immigration policies:
In just the last decade
alone, the increase in the typical household’s rent far outpaced the rise in
the typical full-time worker’s annual earnings, suggesting that working
families and individuals are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends
meet. In fact, the basic cost of living in many parts of the state is more
than many single individuals or families can expect to earn, even if all adults
are working full-time.
…
Specifically, inflation-adjusted
median household rent rose by 16% between 2006 and 2017, while
inflation-adjusted median annual earnings for individuals working at least 35
hours per week and 50 weeks per year rose by just 2%, according to a Budget
Center analysis of US Census Bureau, American Community Survey data.
Many workers are being paid
little more today than workers were in 1979 even as worker productivity has
risen. Fewer employees have access to retirement plans sponsored by their
employers, leaving individual workers on their own to stretch limited dollars and
resources to plan how they’ll spend their later years affording the high cost
of living and health care in California. And as union representation has
declined, most workers today cannot negotiate collectively for better working
conditions, higher pay, and benefits, such as retirement and health care, like
their parents and grandparents did. On top of all this, workers who take on
contingent and independent work (often referred to as “gig work”), which in
many cases appears to be motivated by the need to supplement their primary job
or fill gaps in their employment, are rarely granted the same rights and legal
protections as traditional employees.
The center’s report tries to
blame the four-decade stretch of flat wages on the declining clout of unions. But
unions’ decline was impacted by the bipartisan elites’ policy of mass-migration
and imposed diversity.
In
2018, Breitbart reported how Progressives for
Immigration Reform interviewed Blaine Taylor, a union carpenter, about the
economic impact of migration:
TAYLOR: If I hired a framer to do
a small addition [in 1988], his wage would have been $45 an hour. That was
the minimum for a framing contractor, a good carpenter. For a helper, it was
about $25 an hour, for a master who could run a complete job, it was about $45
an hour. That was the going wage for plumbers as well. His helpers typically
got $25 an hour.
…
Now, the average wage in Los
Angeles for construction workers is less than $11 an hour. They can’t go lower
than the minimum wage. And much of that, if they’re not being paid by the hour
at less than $11 an hour, they’re being paid per piece — per piece of plywood
that’s installed, per piece of drywall that’s installed. Now, the subcontractor
can circumvent paying them as an hourly wage and are now being paid by 1099,
which means that no taxes are being taken out. [Emphasis added]
Diversity
also damaged the unions by shredding California’s civic solidarity. In 2007,
the progressive Southern Poverty Law Center posted a report with the title
“Latino Gang Members in Southern California are Terrorizing and Killing
Blacks.” In the same year, an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times described another murder by Latino
gangs as “a manifestation of an increasingly common trend: Latino ethnic
cleansing of African Americans from multiracial neighborhoods.”
The center’s board members
include the executive director of the state’s SEIU union, a professor from the
Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and
the research director at the “Program for Environmental and Regional Equity” at
the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
Outside
California, President Donald Trump’s low-immigration policies are pressuring
employers to raise Americans’ wages in a hot economy. The Wall Street Journal reportedAugust 29:
Overall, median weekly earnings
rose 5% from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the same quarter in 2018, according
to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For workers between the ages of 25 and 34,
that increase was 7.6%.
The New York Times laments that reduced
immigration does force wages upwards and also does force companies to buy
labor-saving, wage-boosting machinery. Instead, NYT prioritizes "ideas
about America’s identity and culture.” http://bit.ly/2Zp2u2J
NYT Admits Fewer
Immigrants Means Higher Wages, More Labor-Saving Machines
.
As Breitbart News has reported, U.S.
households headed by foreign-born
residents use nearly twice the welfare
of households headed by native-born
Americans.
CA Gov. Newsom: Stimulus Checks to Illegals ‘Being Considered’
2:26
California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) is reportedly considering issuing cash payments to the state’s illegal immigrants as part of a Golden State “Disaster Relief Fund” for the state’s illegal immigrants, according to a Wednesday Associated Press report.
When asked about giving potential financial assistance to illegal immigrants impacted by the coronavirus crisis, Newsom reportedly replied on Tuesday evening that “all of that is being considered.”
According to the report, Newsom said that the broader state-level stimulus package, which he hopes to roll out in May and is discussing with legislators, will have “some economic stimulus strategies at a state level, not just waiting for the federal government to do that for us.”
“Californians care deeply about undocumented residents in this state,” Newsom reportedly added.
The coronavirus relief bill that President Donald Trump signed will issue cash payments to individuals and couples who meet the income requirements and have Social Security numbers. Illegal immigrants are not eligible to receive the federal stimulus checks or the extra $600 a week in unemployment benefits.
Three House Democrats, two of whom are from California (Reps. Judy Chu and Lou Correa), recently introduced the Leave No Taxpayer Behind Act to amend the stimulus bill to issue stimulus cash payments to everyone with an ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number), which many illegal immigrants have, who qualifies.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) initially wanted the relief bill to issue cash payments to everyone with an ITIN, and high-profile progressives like Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have been more vocal about the need to issue cash payments to illegal immigrants with ITINs.
If you don’t believe undocumented workers should have access to relief during #COVID19, does that mean you’re willing return the billions they pay in taxes each year? Will you defund your schools?
Or, in this moment, will we recognize that we should just take care of each other?
The Associated Press, citing a California Latino Legislative Caucus report, noted that there are “about 2 million people in California” who are “suspected of living in the country illegally.”
The California Latino Legislative Caucus has reportedly asked Newsom to create the “Disaster Relief Fund” to issue cash payments to illegal immigrants impacted by the coronavirus crisis reportedly “until the state’s emergency proclamation is lifted or they are able to return to work.”
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