Update 459 — Mitch Ado about Nothing:GOP COVID Bill “Semi-Irrelevant” — Trump If, as polls suggest possible, Republicans are driven from office in November, having lost the White House and their Hill majorities, it won’t just be the price of fealty to Trump. It’s also the deaf ear to the dire needs of nearly 32 …
Update 456: Coming Cutoffs, Cong. Recess Forcing a Fight over Next COVID Package After months of urging from Democrats for another coronavirus package, Congress is finally set to begin active negotiations next week, facing expanded unemployment benefits expiration on July 31 and PPP benefit cutoffs on August 8. With the coronavirus surging in a majority of …
Update 453 — The Paycheck Recovery Act:Nobel Economist Endorses in Bill Hearing A star performance yesterday by economic Nobel laureate Prof. Joseph Stiglitz at a critical bill hearing in an obscure House Financial Services Subcommittee reignited interest in an alternative to the nation’s current COVID economic policy course of response. The bill, H.R. 6918, the …
Update 451: COVID’s Summer Hot SpotsArgue for Targeted, Automatic Relief Fix No economic relief or bill, regardless of size, will be scrupulously equitable as regards state, sector, class, generation, etc. Nor would equity on every basis be optimal in all circumstances. Today, Montana and Vermont are both marginally affected by the Coronavirus. Should relief for …
Update 448 — Fed Confronts COVID SurgeComplicating Policy Calculus for Congress Fourteen states — including California, Texas, Florida, and North Carolina — all in some phase of reopening, set single-day records this month for new coronavirus cases. A statistical error in the BLS unemployment rate understating the true figure by three percent in May will …
Update 446 — PPP Poked, Probed, Prodded:How Many Paychecks Have Been Protected? The administration’s $700 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) represents the only federal effort to protect wages threatened by the Corona crisis. Congress enacted some tweaks to PPP last week that will save some small businesses but protect fewer paychecks. PPP can help some …
Update 443: The COVID Economic Experiencefor Workers, Consumers, Employers, Investors Your economic experience of the impact of the coronavirus will reflect your role in the economy. Are you an “essential worker”? Can you work from home? Can you find the necessities of life as easily or cheaply as before? Are you buying scarce or rationed …
Update 442 — A Tale of Two Economies:Market Correction v. Employment Collapse This week, we compare the impact of the Corona pandemic on the U.S. capital markets and on the real economy of wages and workers. The major indices — DJIA, S&P, NASDAQ — are down less than ten percent this year with gains over …
Update 440 — Fed Chair Powell to Congress:Spend Much More, Fast, or Risk Depression Approaching Memorial Day, it is now two months ago that Congress approved $2.1 trillion in spending in response to the economic impact of the Coronavirus. About 98 percent of all COVID fatalities in the U.S. have occurred since then. How have …
Update 439: HEROES Welcome in the House But Path to COVID Relief in Congress Unclear Despite the unrelenting bad economic news — 36 million unemployed in under two months, trillions of dollars of savings and other assets gone, forty percent of all households earning under $40,000 lost jobs in March — and the conspicuous inadequacy of …
