Fight Back! News

News and Views from the People's Struggle

Masao Suzuki

By Masao Suzuki

San José, CA – Fifty years ago, on August 15, 1971, then-President Nixon ended the U.S. dollar’s link with gold. This marked a retreat from the economic supremacy of the United States after World War II. Less than four years later, the fall of Saigon marked a defeat for the United States and a turning point in U.S. domination of the developing world.

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By Masao Suzuki

Protest against cut off of federal unemployment benefits.

San José, CA – On Saturday, July 31 members and supporters of the Northern California Unemployed Committee or NCUC rallied to protest the coming end of federal unemployment benefits set for September 6. Speakers pointed out how 9 million unemployed people will be losing their benefits and the rest will have their payments cut in half.

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By Masao Suzuki

Oppressed nationalities hit more than twice as much as US whites

San José, CA – On Wednesday, July 20 the National Center for Health Statistics released their provisional report on lifespans in 2020. The report found that the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 600,000 people in the United States, lowered the lifespan by one and half years in 2020. This is the worst drop since World War II. Lifespans have generally increased over time, but this sets the trend back almost 20 years to 2003.

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By Masao Suzuki

San José, CA – On Saturday, June 12, four Republican-led states cut off three federal unemployment benefit programs. These were the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation or FPUC which provides a $300 per week supplement to regular benefits, the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA for self-employed and gig workers, and the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation or PEUC, for the longer-term unemployment who state benefits have run out. This means that 370,000 who have lost work in Alaska, Iowa, Mississippi and Missouri will be losing their benefits starting next week.

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By Masao Suzuki

San José, CA – On Saturday, June 12, four Republican-led states cut off three federal unemployment benefit programs. These were the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation or FPUC which provides a $300 per week supplement to regular benefits, the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA for self-employed and gig workers, and the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation or PEUC, for the longer-term unemployment who state benefits have run out. This means that 370,000 who have lost work in Alaska, Iowa, Mississippi and Missouri will be losing their benefits starting next week.

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By Masao Suzuki

San José, CA – On Friday June 4, the U.S. Department of Labor monthly report on the job market for May 2021 showed that 559,000 new jobs were created, bouncing back from the poor showing the month before. But the economy remained down 7.6 million jobs from February 2020, when the recession began. If job creation continues at the same rate as in May, it would still take until summer of 2022 to reach the pre-pandemic level.

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By Masao Suzuki

San José, CA – On Friday, May 7, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that businesses added 266,000 workers. This was only one-quarter of the additional 1 million jobs that economists had predicted. This left the economy down more than 8 million jobs from February of 2020, right before the economic crisis started. At the current rate it will take the economy more than two and half years to gain back the lost jobs Women have been harder hit by the recession, and the gap with men widened in April as all of the net new jobs went to men.

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By Masao Suzuki

San José, CA – On Friday, May 7, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that businesses added 266,000 workers. This was only one-quarter of the additional 1 million jobs that economists had predicted. This left the economy down more than 8 million jobs from February of 2020, right before the economic crisis started. At the current rate it will take the economy more than two and half years to gain back the lost jobs Women have been harder hit by the recession, and the gap with men widened in April as all of the net new jobs went to men.

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By Masao Suzuki

Northern California Unemployed Committee marchs against police crimes

San Jose, CA – On April 24, the Northern California Unemployed Committee, or NCUC, marched in support of the fight against police crimes in the wake of the conviction of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd.

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By Masao Suzuki

Masao Suzuki

San José, CA – For more than a year Asian Americans have seen a rising tide of violence aimed at individuals of Asian descent. Starting with a vicious knife attack on a father and his two sons, aged six and three years in Midland, Texas in March 2020 and now the murders of eight people, six of whom were Asian American women, near Atlanta, Georgia, thousands of attacks have been reported in the last year – and many more have not.

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By Masao Suzuki

$1.9 trillion COVID relief is badly needed, but more needs to be done

San José, CA – This past week, on March 11, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, and White House passed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 rescue law without the support of a single Republican in the House or the Senate. The law provides much-needed relief for millions of people whose finances have been wounded by the pandemic. Yet much more needs to be done, especially in the fight against the growing economic inequality.

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By Masao Suzuki

California hit hard

San José, CA – The number of people receiving unemployment aid from federal and state governments remained very high in February. Most newspapers and media hailed the decline in the number of new applications for the regular state unemployment insurance and the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA, for self-employed and gig workers for last week. However, the latest week reporting the number of people receiving aid for all programs – including UI, PUA, the federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation or PEUC, and the state Extended Benefits – showed an increase of 700,000. The national total is nine times what it was before the start of the recession a year ago.

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By Masao Suzuki

San José, CA – Even as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to subside during mid-February, layoffs were on the rise, showing that we are nowhere near the end of the tunnel for workers in this country. For the week ending February 13, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that there were 861,000 new applications for regular state unemployment insurance, an increase of 13,000 over the previous week. Applications for the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program for gig workers and the self-employed rose by a much larger 174,427 the same week, to 516,299 new claims. Together, this meant that almost 190,000 working people had to file for government aid because of layoffs and business closures.

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By Masao Suzuki

Total number collecting unemployment on the rise again

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San José, CA – During the week ending February 6, almost 800,000 (793,000) people filed for new claims for regular state unemployment insurance. More than 330,000 others applied for the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or PUA that covers the self-employed and gig workers. This comes to a total of more than 1.1 million people who have lost their jobs in the past week.

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By Masao Suzuki

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San José, CA – On Friday, February 5 the U.S. Department of Labor released their monthly jobs report showing a very small gain of 49,000 net new jobs. This was only half of what economists had predicted, and the job loss in December was revised up by 87,000, so there were still 178,000 fewer jobs in January than in November.

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By Masao Suzuki

Gross Domestic Product weaker than expected

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San José, CA – The broadest measure of unemployment insurance, which includes the regular state unemployment insurance or UI, the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or PUA, the federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation or PEUC, as well as the state Extended Benefits or EB rose in the first week of January by 2.3 million people to a total of 18.3 million people. While down from its peak in April, it is still nine times as high as it was a year ago before the recession began, according to the weekly report by the U.S. Department of Labor released on Thursday, January 28.

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By Masao Suzuki

Retail sales fall for third month in row

San José, CA – The U.S. economy showed more signs of weakness as the COVID-19 pandemic rages and Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed” vaccine rollout crashes and burns amid finger-pointing, lies and incompetence. New claims for regular state unemployment rose by more than 20% in the week ending January 9, the biggest gain since the dark days of March when the economy hit a brick wall.

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By Masao Suzuki

San José, CA – on Friday, January 8 the U.S. Department of Labor released its monthly report on the state of the job market. While mainstream economists expected economic growth to continue to slow with only 50,000 new jobs, down from a gain of 330,000 jobs in November, the reality was much worse. In December, 140,000 jobs were lost, the first month of losses since the dark days of April. The year ended with 9.8 million fewer jobs than before the recession began, a record high going back to 1939, and almost twice as bad as the previous recession year of 2009. President Trump became the first president since Republican Herbert Hoover set to leave office with a net job loss.

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By Masao Suzuki

Masao Suzuki

San José, CA – Republicans in the House and Senate have blocked an effort by Democrats to increase the amount of individual payments in the new pandemic aid act from $600 to $2000. Many progressive Democrats including Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had tried to increase the amount during the negotiations over the new aid package. These payments have been very popular, and at the last minute, President Trump chimed in, saying that he would refuse to sign the bill unless the larger amount was included.

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By Masao Suzuki

Masao Suzuki

San José, CA – Last week the U.S. economy showed more signs of weakness as retail sales in November fell for the second month in a row and new claims for regular state unemployment insurance and the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance rose for the second week in a row. These are more signs of a weaker economy that point to a ‘double-dip’ recession.

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