Last week, a record 3.3 million Americans filed for unemployment, the biggest single jump in American history.
The next official numbers will be released in early April, but those numbers will reflect the week of March 12, the week before the massive shutdowns and closures nationwide paralyzed the economy and put millions out of work.
The economic shutdown caused by governments closing businesses and ordering people is unprecedented. Some economists have tried comparing the downturn to other economic earthquakes, but the conditions are not really comparable.
The housing bubble in 2008 that set off the Great Recession in 2008-09 was a fundamental collapse of a key part of the economy that sent ripples through the rest of the economy, shutting down banking and construction industries, which then slowed down other parts of the economy reliant on them.
The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 caused a hard pause in the economy as Americans worried when or where the next attack would come and how much worse it could possibly be.
When no major attack followed, and the United States began the invasion of Afghanistan to root out the Taliban extremists who gave the terrorists shelter, the economy rebounded. This was also encouraged by state and national leaders who urged Americans to go back to their regular lives and their shopping, lest “the terrorists win.”
The recessions of 1973, 1981 and 1990 were all related to shifts in oil prices due to tumult in the Middle East, slowing all things dependent on gasoline, which is just about everything, but the economies of the world hobbled though the crises until economies recovered.
The Great Depression was a systemic failure of the economy that collapsed the underpinnings of the gold standard and international trade.
Our current economic tailspin is unique in that it happened so fast and that prior to it, the economy was rumbling on relatively well. Unemployment was at historical lows, the stock market at historical highs and, aside from some trade tariff disputes, the supply chain stable.
If the virus instantly disappeared and everyone went back to work tomorrow, the economy would still be relatively healthy. That cannot be said for these other economic collapses and downturns.
The one bright spot of the unemployment numbers is that the computer systems in most states dealing with the unemployed were able to get those 3.3 million workers registered. These computer systems are some of the most antiquated in government and generally last to be upgraded. While phone banks were overloaded and some state websites crashed for a time, 3.3 million Americans were able to apply for unemployment.
This was just the first week of closures, quarantines and stay-at-home orders. The situation will get worse and this number will climb.
Last week, Congress passed a $2 trillion relief package, offering loans to small businesses, direct cash payments to American citizens earning less than $75,000 a year and their dependents, extra money to reimburse state and federal unemployment rolls and help find the hardest hit state and federal agencies.
Factions on both the left and the right can point to corruption, waste, excess, potential for abuse, lack of oversight and a whole litany of problems with this bill — and we’ll certainly hear them for months and years on cable news, talk radio, in newspapers and think pieces.
Yet the fact remains that federal lawmakers crafted a $2 trillion dollar relief package in two weeks and — shockingly — agreed on most of it. Congress passed the largest government bailout in world history.
Depending on the course of the virus and the economy, this massive bill gives lawmakers breathing room to craft better legislation, fix the problems in this bill and help Americans further down the road.
Yes, this bill is an absolute and total mess right now, no one is disputing that. But it is the best option for millions of Americans who, through no fault of their own, have been laid off, furloughed or fired while the companies they used to work for are shuttered.
As your local news source, we will do our best to inform our readers about how the bill affects you, where to go for resources and help, how to get loans, how to get your payments and the benefits you can expect.
Be sure to check the pages of our newspaper, and our website, redrocknews.com, in the coming weeks to see exactly how this bill can help you.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
