San José, CA – On Thursday, July 9, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that the broadest measure of people on unemployment continued to climb. In the week ending June 20, the total number was 32.9 million, up by 1.4 million from a week earlier. This number includes those who are receiving the regular state unemployment insurance benefits, the growing number getting the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or PUA, the Federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation or PEUC, and other smaller programs.

The latest report on new applications for state unemployment benefits for the week ending July 4 did fall slightly to 1.31 million, down 99,000 from the week before. However new claims for the federal PUA rose by 42,000 to 1.04 million from a week earlier. Looking at only the slow decline in the state UI applications can be misleading as people on UI are barely more than half (52%) of all individuals getting aid. Further, even as new layoffs may be slowing, fewer people are getting hired back, boosting the total number getting aid.

Even this grim picture of more than 30 million people relying on direct government aid is looking worse. Yesterday the United States reported another record high in COVID-19 infections, with almost 60,000 new cases in a single day. Even worse, hotspots across the South and Southwest – Florida, Texas and Arizona – are seeing their hospitals in crisis, with intensive care units full and shortages of personal protective equipment, ventilators and medical supplies.

Back in April we saw the United States emerge as the world’s hotspot for COVID-19, rising above the outbreak in Europe. But while Europe has been able to dramatically reduce the number of new infections, the United States is still the world’s leader in infections and deaths. Three southern and southwestern states: Arizona, Florida and South Carolina, have more new infections, adjusted for population, than any country in the world. This increase in infections, hospitalizations, and now deaths are leading to more people pulling back from restaurants and shopping, and to businesses cutting back on operations.

Food pantries across the country facing historic demands and hunger is on the rise. There is a growing threat of mass evictions as state and local eviction moratoriums expire. In July more than a third (36%) of renters have missed some or all of their rent and these numbers will rise in August with the end of the expanded $600 a week unemployment benefits to end on or before July 31. Companies large and small are announcing more layoffs, or mass job cuts when their government aid runs out. Harley Davidson, Walgreens and Wells Fargo all announced plans for more layoffs. Most dramatically, United Airlines said that they would cut one half of their U.S. workers when federal aid ends at the end of September.

With the continuing economic crisis in mind, the Democrat-controlled House passed their HEROES Act, which would extend and expand the provisions of the earlier CARES act through the end of the year. In addition to extended the expanded unemployment, it includes a second round of payments that would include adult dependents and taxpaying undocumented immigrants left out of the CARES act, as well as more for state and local governments, and a small amount for renters.

In contrast, all the Republicans have been able to do is to declare the HEROES Act “Dead on arrival” and that they don’t want to extend the $600 a week benefits. But neither the Republican-controlled Senate nor the Trump administration has a concrete proposal. To add insult to injury, the Senate is taking a two-and-a-half-week recess and holiday that started on July 3. They won’t come back until Monday, July 20, leaving just days for them to agree on a plan and then negotiate with House on a bill. The fact of the matter is that many Republicans want the aid to expire, seeing it as a barrier to get workers to go back to work at dangerous jobs.

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San José, CA – In six weeks, tens of millions of unemployed people face the end of the additional $600 a week in unemployment insurance benefits. This additional benefit that helps low income workers the most is set to expire due to its being opposed by the Republican-controlled Senate. These same workers were hardest hit by the pandemic recession, and many face the prospect of their jobs not coming back. This is just another example of how the economic relief has helped large corporations, which can aided by the Federal Reserve, while low-income workers are subject to punishment by republicans who see the aid as discouraging people from returning to work.

This threat to cut the aid of the lowest-paid workers comes at a time when unemployment insurance claims have stopped falling. Up until this week new claims for unemployment insurance had been falling by 200,000 to 300,000 a week. But then on Thursday, June 18, the U.S. Department of Labor said that for the week ending June 13, new claims for state unemployment insurance (UI) were over 1.5 million, down only 60,000 from the week before. But new claims for the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA, rose by more than 60,000. Together, the state UI and Federal PUA had about 2.2 million new claims, the same as the week before.

Continuing claims for the state unemployment insurance, the federal PUA and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation or PEUC, and other programs had a total of 29.2 million people collecting benefits in the week ending May 30. This total was down only 300,000 or 1% from the previous week.

While Wall Street has bought into the illusion of a ‘V-shaped’ recovery with a quick return of jobs, the reality is that layoffs continue. In the last week, the hotel chain Hilton, ATT, and 24 Hour Fitness were among the large corporations announcing thousands of layoffs.

At the end of May there were 100 million Americans who delayed payments on their mortgage, auto and other loans, more than three times the number at the end of April. While the $1200 relief checks allowed millions of people to pay their loans in April, this has largely been spent, causing tens of millions to seek deferments on their loans. This will continue through June and July and become a catastrophe in August if aid to individuals is not extended.

Finally, another sign of weakness was that housing starts barely stabilized in May, up only 4.3% after a record 26.4% fall in April. Most economic forecasters expected a large 22% bounce in May. This means that thousands more construction jobs that were lost did not come back in May.

The unemployed and all workers need to mobilize to fight to extend the $600 unemployment benefits. They also need to fight for federal aid to state and local governments, including schools, which are facing massive cuts in spending from the loss of tax revenue from the pandemic recession. While Trump says the virus is “dying out,” the reality is that the pandemic is growing in almost half the states, with more reporting record levels day by day. In fact, it is the economy that faces dying out if the Republicans withhold aid and layoffs continue or even grow.

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The day before, on June 10, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave a very downbeat report on the economy, predicting that the unemployment rate would still be more than 9% at the end of the year, dashing Wall Street’s dream of a rapid snapback in the economy. Powell also said that it would take years for the job market to recover and warned of a second spike in the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

In addition to the wretched state of the economy, Wall Street had also been behaving if the pandemic was behind us. But again, the reality of growing hospitalizations for COVID-19 dashed this hope. Many states had waved off growing numbers of infections, saying that it was just because of more testing. But state after state have been reporting spikes in hospitalizations over the last three weeks.

Arizona warned hospitals to reactivate their emergency response plans for the pandemic. Arkansas has seen hospitalizations double since Memorial Day, while Alabama and Texas have hospitalizations increasing by more than 40%. South Carolina and Utah have had hospitalizations rise by 20% or more during that time. While all of these states had lower rates as compared with urban epicenters such as New York City and its metropolitan area, they also share Republican state governments, almost all of whom are hell-bent on reopening the economy, no matter what the cost in human lives.

Last, but certainly not least, the U.S. Department of Labor released the weekly new claims for unemployment insurance for the week ending June 6. New claims for UI were 1.54 million, bringing the total over the last 12 weeks to about 44 million. In addition, some 700,000 new claims for the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) were filed, bringing the total state and local new applications to 2.2 million.

Continuing claims for the week earlier, ending May 23, were 29.5 million for state unemployment insurance and the PUA and other programs. This was down slightly from the more than 30 million the week before, largely due to a big drop in the state of New York, which had been hit the hardest by the pandemic, but which is seeing a sustained drop in new infections, hospitalizations and deaths. Most economists have not viewed fighting the pandemic and economic recovery as opposed to each other.

Worse still, a recent survey in early June shows that up to one-third of people who tried to file for unemployment insurance either have not been able to, or have succeeded in applying but are still not getting their benefits. And worst of all, many Republicans are dead set against extending the enhanced unemployment benefits, which expire at the end of July. With actual unemployment still at Great Depression levels near 20%, and forecast to stay in double digits for months, Republican are keen to increase hunger and homeless for millions to force a few workers back to work at low wages and with inadequate protection.

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This report flies in the face of all the other reports on the job market in May. The Labor Department’s own report on continuing unemployment insurance claims, including regular state unemployment insurance, the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), the federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PE-UC), and other programs, rose from 12.5 million in April to 29.9 million in May. While much of this increase was because of states being late in getting new applicants processed for unemployment insurance benefits, it is hard to see how 17.4 million more people getting benefits can fit with two million more people getting jobs.

Another important report, the Institute for Supply Management surveys of purchasing managers – also known as PMI, showed a reading of 31.8% for employment in the service sector and 32.1% in the manufacturing sector. With 50% being a breakeven point, where as many businesses are hiring as there are businesses cutting jobs, reading in the low 30s show widespread job cuts. Another private survey, the ADP National Employment Report, showed a loss of 2.75 million private sector jobs, as opposed to the official report of a gain of 3 million jobs.

In fact, the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics released a special report on the impact of the COVID-19 on unemployment statistics. They admitted that there were 5.4 million people who were classified as “employed but not working” in the May unemployment report. This is far more than the 550,000 in this category in a typical May. Many if not most of these workers should have been reported as unemployed. If these 4.9 additional “employed but not working” were counted as unemployed, the May unemployment rate would have been 16.1%, not 13.3%.

Even the faulty report shows that African Americans’ and Asian Americans’ unemployment rate went up as the overall rate supposedly went down. While unemployment was supposed to have fallen for Chicanos and Latinos, they still had the highest rate, more than 5% higher than whites. Governments continued to lay off workers, with a loss of almost 600,000 jobs in May, meaning fewer services for our communities.

But even if by some miracle the unemployment rate did go down, it should be seen as the proverbial ‘dead cat bounce.’ The fact of the matter is that there were 30 million people trying to make ends meet on government support while millions more have not received their unemployment or federal relief checks yet. Lines at food pantries stretch for miles and millions have no way to pay the back-rent or mortgage payments that they owe. Millions are looking at the July 31 expiration of federal unemployment supplements, which are looking less and less likely to be extended with strong opposition from Republicans in Washington, D.C.

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San José, CA – On Thursday, May 28, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that there were 2.1 million new claims for state unemployment insurance in the previous week ending May 23. This was down from 2.4 million new claims the week before, showing that the wave of layoffs from the pandemic and efforts to control it is going down. At the same time this is still more than ten times the pre-recession level and brings the total number of new applications to 40 million in the last ten weeks.

The total number of people receiving benefits through both the regular state unemployment and the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or PUA program rose to 31 million for the week ending May 9. This number is almost three weeks old, and the total is bound to higher given the number of new claims and the fact that many states are just starting up their PUA payments.

While the new claims for unemployment insurance and the continuing claims provide the most up-to-date hard data on the economic crisis, they have always understated the actual number of unemployed. For example, at the peak level of people receiving benefits in June of 2010, just as the last recession was officially ending, only 44% of the unemployed were being paid benefits. In February of this year, right before the recession began, only 29% of the unemployed were getting insurance payments.

At the same time, more and more companies, large and small, are declaring bankruptcy or announcing mass layoffs. The biggest news in the last week was that the rental car giant Hertz had filed for bankruptcy. Discount retailer Tuesday Morning also filed for bankruptcy and said that it was closing a third of its stores permanently. Airplane maker Boeing announced 13,000 job cuts, and its suppliers are cutting even more jobs as Boeing cuts back production. One such company was General Electric, which is laying off thousands of workers. Many more workers are facing cuts in their wages or hours.

Another sign of a weakening economy is that the National Association of Realtors said that pending home sales fell 21.8% in April from March, and were off 33.8% from the year ago month. This slump in pending home sales means that a large drop in actual home sales will come this month or in June.

Amtrak also said that it was cutting 20% of its workers, or about 3600 people, in the next fiscal year that begins October 2020. This is just one of the many state, local and federal layoffs that are spreading as tax and sales revenues decline. Smaller cities and towns are facing a double whammy of being left out of the CARES Act – which only gave aid to cities with populations over 500,000 – and generally weaker medical facilities to fight the pandemic.

The recession is also speeding up the use of automation and artificial intelligence to reduce the number of workers that a company needs. Technology workers, who have not been hit as hard by the pandemic so far as most are able to work from home, are much more concerned about this than non-tech workers.

Hunger and homelessness are also on the rise. Millions of school children are going without free or subsidized lunches as schools close down. The government program set up even before the CARES Act has reached only 15% of the eligible children, leaving 25 million in danger of hunger. Courts in Texas and other states are ruling for landlords and banks that are evicting tenants and foreclosing on homes in the midst of a pandemic.

As people line up at food banks and/or being put out on the street, the struggle to expand food stamps, expand eviction bans, and to extend unemployment insurance benefits can only grow in the weeks ahead.

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San José, CA – On Friday, May 22, the monthly report on state-level labor markets saw the – unemployment rate for three states – Nevada, Michigan and Hawai’i – all soar to more than 20%, levels unseen since the worst of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Actual job losses, reported by business, came to almost 20% between March and April in Vermont and New York, along with Hawai’i.

Since the survey for state-level unemployment rates was taken in mid-April, as many as 15 million more unemployment insurance claims have been filed with the states and with the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program set up by the CARES act. This could add as much as 10% more to the national unemployment rate, and even more to the hardest hit states.

There were also signs that the economic crisis is spreading the housing and auto markets. 3.6 million people did not pay their mortgages in April. This rate doubled from 3.06% in March to 6.45% in April. In the 2007-2009 recession it took one and a half years for late mortgages to rise as much as it did in one month in this pandemic economic crisis.

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