Unemployment Skyrockets, So Does Hunger
https://socialistaction.org/2020/05/19/unemployment-skyrockets-so-does-hunger/
May 19, 2020
By BARRY SHEPPARD
The Labor Department recently released figures for the unemployment rate
for April, saying that the rate was 14.7 percent, the highest since the
Great Depression of the 1930s. The Labor Department said that because of
how it classifies workers, the real figure could be 20 percent.
These figures reflect the situation as it was in mid-April, more than a
month ago, and millions more have applied for unemployment insurance
since, with the reported total as of May 9 reaching 36 million. Eleven
million workers reported working part time because they couldn’t find
full time work, up from four million before the pandemic.
Many millions tried to apply, but the unemployment agencies were so
swamped they either couldn’t process these attempts or were weeks late.
A May 15 article in the New York Times titled “Job Losses Mount Even as
U.S. Begins to Lift Lockdown” reports that, according to a poll they had
conducted by a polling firm, “more than half of those applying for
unemployment benefits in recent weeks were unsuccessful.”
The article also says, “In places where the fitful reopening has
started, workers called back often face reduced hours and paychecks as
well a heightened risk of infection. Declining to return, however, is
likely to put an end to any jobless benefits.
“‘It’s a very tough choice for those in the service industry and those
at the lower end of the pay scale,’ Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S.
economist at High Frequency Economics said. ‘Do you go back and risk
getting sick, or have no money coming in?’”
Service industry jobs have a high percentage of African American and
Latino workers. Also in the “lower end of the pay scale” are Native
Americans and poorer whites.
It is clear that the U.S. economy and the working class has been hard hit.
Capitalists are pressuring both parties to lift all aspects of the
shutdown. They want to get back to the business of making profit, even
if that means more deaths.
Most states are trying to reopen businesses shut down by the pandemic.
Some states are being cautious and are linking what businesses to reopen
to safety measures to keep the virus from spiking again, while others
are more reckless.
An experiment is underway. Will the reopening, with more and more people
going back to workplaces, where they may be exposed to the virus, and
others traveling, and crowds developing without keeping safe distances,
result in a new spike in infections and deaths, leading to a need for
reversal?
On May 18, deaths from the virus in the U.S. reached 90,000, according
to the official count. We know that the real figure is much higher,
since the official figure comes mainly from deaths recorded in hospitals
and nursing homes, where tests confirmed they were caused by the virus.
One way that researchers use to discover the true number of
COVID-19-related deaths is to look at the overall monthly number of
reported deaths from all causes this year, compared with previous years.
By looking at how many more people overall have died this year than in
previous years, you can get an idea of the true number of coronavirus
deaths, even if they are not classified as COVID-19-related due to lack
of testing. Many who die at home or on the streets go untested, and
their deaths are not recorded in official COVID-19 death statistics. And
indeed, huge differences in the number of monthly reported deaths in
many places compared to previous years prove that the official reported
figure is far lower than the real number.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of
Washington has now predicted that the death toll will increase, due to
increased mobility of the population. Institute Director Dr. Christopher
Murray said that some states that have moved to reopen are seeing
double-digit spikes in reported cases.
There is a time lag between exposure and development of symptoms, and
more time before deaths occur and are reported. It will take months to
see the full results of the opening up of businesses in this experiment
with people’s lives.
What Trump hopes is that a quick opening up of all the economy will mean
it will come roaring back. Some bourgeois economists agree with him, at
least to some extent. But we should be more cautious. We are in a
situation never before seen in the history of capitalism. We know there
will be major short-term and long-term economic effects.
Another factor is that just as the pandemic is international in scope,
so is the economic impact. What happens to the world economy will affect
the U.S. For example, the European Union said that it will experience a
“deep and uneven recession” of historic proportions, with a contraction
of 7.5 percent in 2020 in its member countries. That certainly will have
an effect on the U.S.
Hunger Grows in the United States
Worldwide, the pandemic has greatly increased lack of sufficient food,
with large numbers in the Global South (oppressed nations, the majority
of humanity) facing starvation. Just as the poorer nations suffer the
most, within the U.S. the poorest are hit the hardest.
At the end of April 2020, nearly one-quarter of all U.S. households
reported not having enough food to eat – double the amount of a similar
survey in 2018.
The pandemic is impacting African Americans, Latinos and Native
Americans (especially the Navajo Nation) hard, with cases and deaths
disproportionately high. They have been hit hard economically, too,
along with poorer white workers.
Hunger in the U.S. has increased since the Great Recession of 2007–2009,
as the sluggish recovery has impacted poorer people negatively. Before
the pandemic, the number of people suffering from hunger in the U.S. was
40 million. But this has increased greatly during the pandemic with long
lines at food banks. In some places there are lines of people close
together. Elsewhere, lines of cars waiting for food bank pick-ups
stretch large distances.
An article in the New York Times reported, “As a padlocked economy
leaves millions of Americans without paychecks, lines outside food banks
have stretched for miles, prompting some of the overwhelmed charities to
seek help from the National Guard.
“New research shows a rise in food insecurity [the euphemism for not
enough food] without modern precedent. Among mothers with young
children, nearly one-fifth say their children are not getting enough to
eat, according to a survey by the Brookings Institution, a rate three
times as high as in 2008, during the worst of the Great Recession.”
The Times claims that “Democrats want a temporary increase of food stamp
benefits of 15 percent during the crisis,” but Trump and the Republicans
are the only obstacle. The newspaper recounts the many Trump
administration attacks on poor and working people: “Even as the pandemic
unfolded, the Trump administration tried to push forward with new work
rules projected to remove more people from aid. Mr. Trump and his
congressional allies have agreed to only a short-term increase in food
stamp benefits that omits the poorest recipients, including five million
children.”
In fact, it was Democrat Bill Clinton who signed into law the drastic
cuts to social safety net programs in the 1990s, including massive cuts
to the number of people receiving food assistance and the amount of
assistance they get. A 15 percent increase to an already woefully
inadequate program amounts to literally throwing crumbs to the tens of
millions of starving working class people in the richest country on earth.
It is quite possible that we are entering a deep recession in the United
States and much of the world. If that indeed occurs, working people will
bear the brunt of the suffering, including “food insecurity.”
Related Articles
Killer Capitalism’s COVID-19 Back-to-Work Imperative
May 21, 2020
By JEFF MACKLER and JAMES FORTIN
Over the past several weeks, daily new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S.
have remained in the 22,000–25,000 range. By June 1, it is estimated
that the number of deaths each day will rise to 3,000. Yet all 50 states
now have begun lifting socially-protective measures aimed at containing
the coronavirus, planning to “re-start” the U.S. economy – primarily by
sending workers back to work. Why is this, and what really should be done?
Reopening schools: A dangerous threat to children and teachers
May 20, 2020
By STEVE R. JOHNSON
Plans to reopen schools are being questioned by the international
working class as the novel coronavirus continues to spread across the world.
The “New Normal” and the Shock Doctrine
May 11, 2020
By MARTY GOODMAN
Today only 51.3% of American adults have jobs – the lowest number on
record, lower than the Great Depression. We have passed 80,000
coronavirus deaths.
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Steven Pinker
“It's natural to think that living things must be the handiwork of a designer.
But it was also natural to think that the sun went around the earth. Overcoming
naive impressions to figure out how things really work is one of humanity's
highest callings.
[Can You Believe in God and Evolution? Time Magazine, August 7, 2005]”
― Steven Pinker