A new record of 6.6 million Americans apply for benefits
San José, CA – New claims for Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits doubled from record numbers just a week earlier. On Thursday, April 2, the Department of Labor reported that more than 6.6 million people applied for state unemployment insurance benefits for the week ending March 28. This means that almost 10 MILLION people lost their jobs and applied for UI benefits in just the last two weeks of March. This economic crisis has caused more job losses in two weeks than the entire 2007 to 2009 recession, where 8 million jobs were lost.
San José, CA – Many immigrants won’t be able to get help from the bipartisan COVID-19 pandemic aid bills passed by Congress and signed by President Trump. More than 4 million undocumented immigrants who are paying taxes with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN, will not qualify for the $1200 per person benefit because they have no Social Security number. Another 5 million American citizen children with undocumented parents also will not get the $500 per child benefit.
San José, CA – The U.S. Senate has failed twice to pass a Republican-backed economic stimulus bill worth over a trillion dollars ($1,000,000,000,000). Opposition to the bill comes from its top-down (or in the 1930’s Great Depression term, ‘trickle down’) approach. The bill would provide hundreds of billions of loans to corporations that would not have to be paid back, just as in the loans made to U.S. auto makers after the financial crisis in 2008. It would also give direct cash handouts, with almost half of all households getting half of what middle and higher income households would get.
Federal Reserve takes extreme measures to protect wealthy
San José, CA – Last week the financial news was dominated by the falling stock market, which had its worst week since the 2008 financial crisis. But behind the scenes the U.S. Federal Reserve, or Fed, was working feverishly to prevent another financial crisis, taking actions not even done during the 2008 crash.
Caracas, Venezuela – A Freedom Road Socialist Organization labor delegation toured the Canaima laptops and tablets factory in Caracas, Venezuela on March 12. The Canaima plant is located within walking distance of the bridge where U.S. puppet Juan Guaido launched a failed coup d’état April 30, 2019. Upon arrival, leading representatives of the Canaima assembly plant greeted the American Teamsters with genuine smiles and warm handshakes.
San José, CA – On Thursday, March 19, the Department of Labor reported a surge of applications for Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits as the COVID-19 pandemic began to bite into the economy. For the week ending March 14, a seasonally adjusted 281,000 claims were filed, up 70,000 (or one-third) from the week before and much greater than the predicted 220,000. A National Public Radio poll also conducted last week showed that 18% of all households had already lost income from layoffs or reduced work hours.
San José, CA – On Sunday, March 15, the Federal Reserve bank hit the panic button, dropping interest rates by a full percentage point to near zero. The last time that Fed did this was in December 2008 during the financial crisis. The Federal Reserve also pledged to restart the Quantitative Easing or QE program of longer-term bond buying, first started in November 2008. Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury Mnuchin also vowed to go to congress this coming week to restart emergency financial powers for the federal government in addition to the Fed’s actions.
