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1 million
“More than 1 million Americans filed first-time unemployment claims for the 46th consecutive week last week,” Axios reports. “There is no historical precedent for the ongoing rate of job losses in the U.S.”
“We can’t hold back … Trying to be per se fiscally responsible at this point in time with what we’ve got going on in this country. If we actually throw away some money right now, so what?”
— West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R), calling for a big stimulus package in a CNN interview.
3.5%
“The U.S. economy shrank by 3.5 percent last year as the novel coronavirus upended American business and households, making 2020 the worst year for U.S. economic growth since the depths of the Great Recession,” the Washington Post reports. “This is the last GDP report from former president Donald Trump’s tenure. Until the pandemic, Trump was on track for an economic record that put him near the middle of the pack among recent presidents. But the covid-19 crisis has ensured that he is likely to have overseen the slowest economic growth of any president in the period since the Second World War.”
1 million
Worker filings for jobless claims jumped to nearly 1 million last week, indicating rising layoffs amid a surge in Covid-19 cases, the Wall Street Journal reports.
50
Bloomberg: “Tax cuts for rich people breed inequality without providing much of a boon to anyone else, according to a study of the advanced world that could add to the case for the wealthy to bear more of the cost of the coronavirus pandemic. … The paper, by David Hope of the London School of Economics and Julian Limberg of King’s College London, found that such measures over the last 50 years only really benefited the individuals who were directly affected, and did little to promote jobs or growth.”
7.8 million
“The U.S. poverty rate has surged over the past five months, with 7.8 million Americans falling into poverty, the latest indication of how deeply many are struggling after government aid dwindled,” the Washington Post reports. “The poverty rate jumped to 11.7 percent in November, up 2.4 percentage points since June, according to new data released Wednesday by researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of Notre Dame.”
245,000
Nonfarm payrolls increased by just 245,000 in November, well below Wall Street estimates of 440,000 as rising coronavirus cases coincided with a considerable slowdown in hiring, CNBC reports.
860,000
“The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week to 860,000, a historically high figure that reflects economic damage from the coronavirus outbreak,” the AP reports. “Before the pandemic hit the economy, the number signing up for jobless aid had never exceeded 700,000 in a week, even during the depths of the 2007-2009 Great Recession.”
42%
A new Gallup poll found that 42% of Americans say the economy is now in a recession, and another 30% say the economy is now in a depression.
61%
Gallup: “Sixty-one percent of Americans say they are better off than they were three years ago, a higher percentage than in prior election years when an incumbent president was running. In the 1992, 1996 and 2004 election cycles, exactly half said they were better off. In three separate measures during the 2012 election cycle, an average of 45% said they were better off.”
