Recession

Debt In The Time Of Pandemic

February 17, 2021 Edna Bonhomme, Al Jazeera. Educate! Biden administration, Debt Forgiveness, Recession, Student Debt

On New Year’s Day, I received an email from Navient, a student loan servicing company, requesting that I pay $4,442 by January 28. Initially, all I could feel was shame for being in so much debt. But soon, my feelings of shame transformed into anger – how could they request such a big payment, in such a short time period, amid a global pandemic that left so many young people like me unemployed or underemployed, struggling to keep a roof over their heads and put food on their tables? Indeed, I am hardly the only person with an American education worrying about student loan repayments in the middle of the most serious public health crisis the world has faced in decades.

US Suffers Sharpest Rise In Poverty Rate In More Than 50 Years

February 5, 2021 Alex Tanzi and Catarina Saraiva, Chicago Tribune. Educate! COVID-19, Poverty, Recession, United States

The end of 2020 brought the sharpest rise in the U.S. poverty rate since the 1960s, according to a new study. Economists Bruce Meyer from the University of Chicago and James Sullivan of the University of Notre Dame found that the poverty rate increased by 2.4 percentage points during the latter half of 2020 as the U.S. continued to suffer the economic impacts of COVID-19. That percentage-point rise is nearly double the largest annual increase in poverty since the 1960s. This means an additional 8 million people nationwide are now considered poor. Moreover, the poverty rate for Black Americans is estimated to have jumped by 5.4 percentage points, or by 2.4 million individuals.

Biden Stimulus Bill: What Will It Take To Really ‘Rescue America?’

January 23, 2021 Jordan Woll, Liberation News. Educate! Economic Stimulus, Joe Biden, Recession, Socialism

Joe Biden’s recently-announced pandemic relief package, the so-called American Rescue Plan, is the new administration’s top legislative priority. With the bar set tragically low by the Trump government, any action at all by the Biden administration may feel like a welcome improvement. But the severity of the pandemic in the country and the threat of emerging, highly-transmissible new strains of the virus requires radical solutions to address the urgent daily needs of working and poor people. The Democrats control both houses of Congress and the executive branch. The filibuster that requires 60 Senators to vote in favor of closing debate on a measure is not a law, but an internal Senate rule that the Democratic majority can simply decide to do away with.

Biden’s ‘American Rescue Plan’ And Its Opponents

January 19, 2021 Jack Rasmus, ZNet. Educate! Congress, COVID-19, Joe Biden, Recession

New filings for unemployment benefits have been rising rapidly. From a ‘low’ of about 1 million/week in December last week’s initial claims for benefits topped 1.4 million—when both benefit programs, State administered and the Federal PUA, are counted . Another red flag indicator is consumer spending (70% of the US economy) and retail sales, its largest component. The latter fell -1.4%% in November and another -0.7% in December, according to just released US Commerce data. These are typical months during which they rise the fastest. Another indicator of consumer spending in growing trouble, credit card spending fell an even larger -2.7% in December, according to Chase Bank’s database...

The US Economy Could Use Some ‘Overheating’

January 16, 2021 Josh Bivens, Economic Policy Institute. Create! COVID-19, Finance and the Economy, Joe Biden, Recession

Recent proposals for large-scale fiscal relief and recovery from the economic effects of COVID-19 have drawn criticism that they could lead to “overheating” of the U.S. economy. These criticisms should be ignored. Proposals under discussion—including Biden’s economic plan introduced tonight—are highly unlikely to lead to any durable uptick in inflation or interest rates (the normal indicators of “overheating”) and even if they did, these higher interest rates and inflation would be a welcome sign of economic healing, not something to worry about. Warnings about economic “overheating” normally mean that growth in spending by households, businesses, and governments (known as aggregate demand) will outpace growth in the...

$2,000 Checks Now And Make Them Monthly

January 15, 2021 Sean Kline and Jim Pugh, In These Times. Create! Congress, Joe Biden, Recession, Universal Basic Income

“It’s not hyperbole, you can change America,” President-elect Joe Biden told Georgia voters ahead of the January 5 runoff Senate elections. And they have. Not only did Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff’s wins hand Democrats control of the Senate, but the election served as a clear referendum on voters’ demand for increased stimulus payments directly to the American people. Leading up to the Georgia election, Democrats — responding to demands by both progressives and President Trump — pushed to increase individual stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000 but were blocked by Senate Republicans. Ossoff and Warnock campaigned on this cash assistance to aid struggling families during the pandemic...

600 Groups Urge Biden To Impose National Moratorium On Water Shut-offs

January 14, 2021 Joseph Guzman, The Hill. Resist! COVID-19, Joe Biden, Recession, Water

Above photo: Detroit activists march for restoring local democracy and economic justice, and an end to the water shut-offs, July

War Of The (Financial) Worlds

January 13, 2021 Nomi Prins, Tom Dispatch. Educate! Capitalism, Finance and the Economy, Recession, Wall Street

Sometimes things only make sense when seen through a magnifying lens. As it happens, I’m thinking about reality, the very American and global reality clearly repeating itself as 2021 begins. We all know, of course, that we’re living through a once-in-a-century-style pandemic; that millions of people have lost their jobs, a portion of which will never return; that the poorest among us, who can withstand such acute economic hardship the least, have been slammed the hardest; and that the global economy has been kneecapped, thanks to a battery of lockdowns, shutdowns, restrictions of various sorts, and health-related concerns.

2020 Ends With Almost Ten Million Fewer Jobs Than Before The Recession

January 13, 2021 Elise Gould, Economic Policy Institute. Educate! 2020, COVID-19, Recession, Unemployment

On January 8, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the last jobs report of 2020, which is also the last jobs report we will receive while Trump is president—a presidency that has ushered in tragedies ranging from historic job losses to armed insurrection. The report showed that jobs fell by 140,000 in December—an unequivocal disaster for the state of the economic recovery. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the inadequate federal response, job growth waned throughout the fall and fell outright in December. The year ends with 9.8 million fewer jobs than before the pandemic recession hit in February and 546,000 fewer jobs than at the start of Trump’s presidency in January 2016.

In 2021, Let’s Ring A Global Alarm On Inequality That Everyone Can Hear

January 6, 2021 Sam Pizzigati, Counterpunch. Educate! COVID-19, Economic inequality, Pandemic, Recession

Remember that old joke they used to tell — and maybe still do — in luxury retail circles? The customer, precious product in hand, walks over to a haughty sales clerk at a high-end emporium and timidly asks: “How much does this cost.” “If you have to ask,” the sales clerk smiles back, “you can’t afford it.” How much more unequal have we become in 2020? This question demands that we turn that old joke inside-out: We have to ask because we can’t afford not to know. And we can’t afford not to know because inequality is killing us. We have to know exactly what we’re facing. And what we’re facing, the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton have just reminded us, doesn’t look good.

Iowa Farm Bankruptcies Continue To Rise, Despite Aid

January 6, 2021 Erin Jordan, The Gazette. Educate! Bankruptcy, Farmers, Iowa, Recession

There were 27 farm bankruptcies in Iowa in 2019 — more than double the 13 bankruptcies in 2018, the American Farm Bureau Federation reported. This was despite the $1.58 billion the federal government paid Iowa farmers in Market Facilitation Program payments to ease losses because of the trade dispute with China. Later this month, we’ll know how many Iowa farms went bankrupt in 2020, but Iowa State University economics professor and crop markets specialist Chad Hart said to expect another increase. “The government has provided a lot of short-term funding to help farmers get through the year,” Hart said, referring to market facilitation and coronavirus food assistance programs, which funneled two rounds of aid to farmers in 2020.

The Political Lessons Of The Pandemic

January 4, 2021 Joseph Kishore and David North, WSWS. Strategize! Left Politics, Pandemic, Recession, Socialism

1. As the New Year begins, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to sweep across the globe. This is a world crisis of vast historical significance. The pandemic is a “trigger event” that manifests in a highly concentrated form the contradictions of the world capitalist system and is unleashing long-suppressed forces of social transformation. 2. The pandemic cannot be described as merely a medical crisis. In the course of the past year, the thoroughly reactionary character of world capitalism has been exposed. The interaction of the drive for profit regardless of social cost, the lust of the oligarchs for obscene levels of personal wealth, and their inhuman indifference to the lives and welfare of the world’s population has created a global social catastrophe.

Harvard Workers Left Out In The Cold

December 30, 2020 Michelle Chen, Dissent Magazine. Educate! Harvard, Recession, Unemployment, Worker Rights and Jobs

Harvard University’s campus has been dormant since last spring, and as COVID-19 cases rise through the winter, it’s unclear when normal classes will resume. The administration recently announced that the majority of the university’s staff would continue to work remotely through June 2021. For the janitorial staff, however, work never ended. Roughly 700 janitorial workers have held onto their jobs through the pandemic, maintaining their full union wages, even though in some cases they are working on a reduced schedule. But for hundreds of subcontracted frontline workers, next year may bring a round of layoffs at the worst possible time.

New York To Pass Nation’s Strongest Eviction Ban

December 30, 2020 Julia Conley, Commondreams. Create! Eviction, Foreclosure, New York (NY), Recession

Both the state Senate and state Assembly convened remotely Monday for special sessions to pass the legislation, a day after President Donald Trump signed the $900 billion coronavirus relief bill which he had delayed approving for several days. As Common Dreams reported Monday, the president's delay could cost millions of people a full week in unemployment benefits, intensifying fears that families will struggle to make ends meet in the new year. Under New York's Covid-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act, tenants who are struggling to pay rent due to the coronavirus pandemic will be able to declare that they're facing a financial hardship due to lost income, increased medical or family care expenses, or inability to find employment due to the crisis.

Congress Passes $900 Billion Mitigation 2.0 Bill

December 23, 2020 Jack Rasmus, Counterpunch. Educate! Congress, COVID-19, Democrats, Recession

As the 2020 year closes, Congress is about to pass a $900B Covid Relief spending bill. But make no mistake. It’s Senate leader Mitch McConnell’s proposal. And it will hardly dent the rapidly slowing US economy this 4th quarter and the increasingly forecasted coming double dip recession early next year. The new spending shouldn’t be confused as a ‘stimulus’ bill. It won’t stimulate the economy much, if at all. A stimulus requires significant net new spending. Most of the deal is just a continuation of past spending levels, and in some notable examples it’s a reduction in spending levels. The same can be said for the companion legislation to keep the US federal government funded.

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