U.S.
A Record 3.28 Million Americans Filed for Unemployment Last Week. Are We in a Recession?
Published
2 years agoon
By
Cory Ray
- Last week, a staggering 3.28 million people applied for unemployment in the United States.
- The number beats the previous 1982 record and weekly claims during the 2008 Recession by millions.
- However, economists say the new wildly high unemployment numbers are more akin to what is seen in times of natural disaster rather than “typical recessions.”
- In an extremely rare televised interview, Federal Reserve Chair said the economy may already be in a recession, but he appeared optimistic that the country could possibly bounce back quickly once the virus is under control and businesses reopen.
Unemployment Claims All-Time High
More than 3.28 million people filed unemployment claims last week, according to the Labor Department.
The number is a stunning indication of just how rapidly and how extensively businesses like restaurants, hotels, gyms, movie theaters, etc. have shut down as the COVID-19 pandemic batters the United States.
By contrast, this new number shattered the previous record (695,000 claims in 1982) for the highest number of unemployment claims filed in a single week. It also greatly surpassed any week of the 2008 Recession, which capped at 665,000 during a single week.
However, comparing the coronavirus’ economic impacts to “typical” recessions isn’t quite accurate. This is because those recessions generally play out over a series of months or years.
For instance, while the 2008 Recession never saw weekly unemployment hit the millions, unemployment was higher than average for five years. In fact, if you added together all of the weeks of above-average unemployment, you’d get a total of about 26 million claims filed.
With the coronavirus, however, while the U.S. might see extremely high unemployment rates, many economists only expect it to last for a matter of weeks. Since the two circumstances are so wildly different, that can also make it difficult to use “typical” recessions to predict what will happen in the U.S. economy even a month or two from now.
Still, many economists predict that unemployment could climb as high as 40 million people by April, so while it may not be like “typical” recessions, this already is and will likely continue to affect millions of people.
On top of that, many trying to file for unemployment have recounted horror stories of websites crashing and being on hold for hours, many only to be told once they finally reach someone that they don’t qualify.
Treating the Coronavirus Like a Natural Disaster
Many economists are telling people to view the coronavirus pandemic less like the 2008 financial crisis and more like a natural disaster, which can cause the immediate shutdown of an entire economic region.
One big example is Louisiana and Hurricane Katrina. On average, about 4,000 unemployment claims are filed each week in Louisiana. When Katrina hit in 2005, there was a massive, yet momentary spike in unemployment claims.
That spike is similar to the nearly 73,000 people who filed unemployment claims in Louisiana last week. Of course, now, it’s not just Louisiana that’s experiencing a rapid surge in unemployment.
Just about every state in the country has seen a significant rise, with states like California, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, and Texas all boasting some of the largest numbers. It should be noted, however, that these are all highly populated states and the average unemployment rate for each state varies.
- California
- Weekly Average: 52,200
- Claims Filed Last Week: 186,809
- Massachusetts
- Weekly Average: 8,000
- Claims Filed Last Week: 147,995
- Michigan
- Weekly Average: 15,000
- Claims Filed Last Week: 129,298
- New Jersey
- Weekly Average: 11,000
- Claims Filed Last Week: 155,454
- Ohio
- Weekly Average: 187,784
- Claims Filed Last Week: 13,000
- Texas
- Weekly Average: 16,900
- Claims Filed Last Week: 155,657
By far, the biggest spike in unemployment claims was in Pennsylvania, where nearly 380,000 people filed for unemployment. That’s up from an average weekly filing of 21,000 claims.
Are We In A Recession?
Thursday morning, in an extremely rare televised interview, Jerome Powell, Chair of the Federal Reserve, spoke with Savannah Guthrie on The TODAY Show. Prompted by a question from Guthrie, Powell said the country “may well be in a recession.”
“But I would point to the difference between this and a normal recession,” he added. “There is nothing fundamentally wrong with our economy. Quite the contrary. The economy performed very well, right, through February. We’ve got a fifty year low in unemployment in the last couple of years, so we start in a very strong position.”
“This isn’t something that’s wrong with the economy. This is a situation where people are being asked to step back from economic activity, close their businesses, stay home from work, so in principle, if we get the virus spread under control fairly quickly, then economic activity can resume. ”
Powell went on to say that once the country is able to get this virus under control, it could see that rebound. Notably, Powell also stressed that it is still unknown how quickly that could happen.
One of the biggest ways the government is trying to hold up the economy is through a $2 trillion dollar stimulus package. Wednesday night, the Senate unanimously passed that 96-0. It now goes to the House, which is expected to vote on it tomorrow morning.
If it passes without any revisions, it would then head directly to President Trump, who’s said he would sign it immediately.
News of the bill’s passage through the Senate led to favorable reactions in the stock market. Between that news and the announcement that Senate Democrats and Republicans were working with the White House to make such a deal, both the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 posted their first back-to-back gains for the first time since February.
In February, the Dow was posting an all-time high of 29,000. By Monday, when Senate Democrats shot down a previous version of the stimulus package, the Dow Jones had sunk to 18,000 points. Notably, it hadn’t been that low since 2016.
By Thursday morning, the Dow was back up to 22,000 points.
See what others are saying: (The New York Times) (The Wall Street Journal) (CNN)
U.S.
Uvalde Puts Police Chief on Leave, Tries to Kick Him Off City Council
Published
4 days agoon
June 23, 2022By
Chris Tolve
If Pete Arredondo fails to attend two more consecutive city council meetings, then he may be voted out of office.
Police Chief Faces Public Fury
Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo was placed on administrative leave Wednesday following revelations that he and his officers did not engage the shooter at Robb Elementary for over an hour despite having adequate weaponry and protection.
Superintendent Hal Harrell, who made the announcement, did not specify whether the leave is paid or unpaid.
Harrell said in a statement that the school district would have waited for an investigation to conclude before making any personnel decisions, but chose to order the administrative leave because it is uncertain how long the investigation will take.
Lieutenant Mike Hernandez, the second in command at the police department, will assume Arredondo’s duties.
In an interview with The Texas Tribune earlier this month, Arredondo said he did not consider himself in charge during the shooting, but law enforcement records reviewed by the outlet indicate that he gave orders at the scene.
Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw told state senators on Tuesday that some officers wanted to enter the classrooms harboring the shooter but were stopped by their superiors.
He said officer Ruben Ruiz tried to move forward into the hallway after receiving a call from his wife Eva Mireles, a teacher inside one of the classrooms, telling him she had been shot and was bleeding to death.
Ruiz was detained, had his gun taken away, and was escorted off the scene, according to McCraw. Mireles later died of her wounds.
Calls for Arredondo to resign or be fired have persisted.
Emotions Erupt at City Council
Wednesday’s announcement came one day after the Uvalde City Council held a special meeting in which community members and relatives of victims voiced their anger and demanded accountability.
“Who are you protecting?” Asked Jasmine Cazares, sister of Jackie Cazares, a nine-year-old student who was shot. “Not my sister. The parents? No. You’re too busy putting them in handcuffs.”
Much of the anger was directed toward Arredondo, who was not present at the meeting but was elected to the city council on May 7, just over two weeks before the massacre.
“We are having to beg ya’ll to do something to get this man out of our faces,” said the grandmother of Amerie Jo Garza, a 10-year-old victim. “We can’t see that gunman. That gunman got off easy. We can’t take our frustrations out on that gunman. He’s dead. He’s gone. … Ya’ll need to put yourselves in our shoes, and don’t say that none of ya’ll have, because I guarantee you if any of ya’ll were in our shoes, ya’ll would have been pulling every string that ya’ll have to get this man off the council.”
One woman demanded the council refuse to grant Arredondo the leave of absence he had requested, pointing out that if he fails to attend three consecutive meetings the council can vote him out for abandoning his office.
“What you can do right now is not give him, if he requests it, a leave of absence,” she said. “Don’t give him an out. We don’t want him. We want him out.”
After hearing from the residents, the council voted unanimously not to approve the leave of absence.
On Tuesday, Uvalde’s mayor announced that Robb Elementary is set to be demolished, saying no students or teachers should have to return to it after what happened.
We make it a point to not include the names and pictures of those who may have been seeking attention or infamy and will not link out to websites that might contain such information.
U.S.
Texas Public Safety Director Says Police Response to Uvalde Shooting Was An “Abject Failure”
Published
6 days agoon
June 21, 2022By
Chris Tolve
New footage shows officers prepared to engage the shooter one hour before they entered the classroom.
Seventy-Seven Deadly Minutes
Nearly a month after the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 children and two teachers, evidence has emerged indicating that police were prepared to engage the shooter within minutes of arriving, but chose to wait over an hour.
The shooting at Robb Elementary began at 11:33 a.m., and within three minutes 11 officers are believed to have entered the school, according to surveillance and body camera footage obtained by KVUE and the Austin American Statesman.
District Police Chief Pete Arredondo reportedly called a landline at the police department at 11:40 a.m. for help.
“It’s an emergency right now,” he said. “We have him in the room. He’s got an AR-15. He’s shot a lot… They need to be outside the building prepared because we don’t have firepower right now. It’s all pistols.”
At 11:52 a.m., however, the footage shows multiple officers inside the school armed with at least two rifles and one ballistic shield.
Law enforcement did not enter the adjoined classrooms to engage the shooter until almost an hour later, at 12:50 p.m. During that time, one officer’s daughter was inside the classrooms and another’s wife, a teacher, reportedly called him to say she was bleeding to death.
Thirty minutes before law enforcement entered the classrooms, the footage shows officers had four ballistic shields in the hallway.
Frustrated Cops Want to Go Inside
Some of the officers felt agitated because they were not allowed to enter the classrooms.
One special agent at the Texas Department of Public Safety arrived about 20 minutes after the shooting started, then immediately asked, “Are there still kids in the classrooms?”
“It is unknown at this time,” another officer replied.
“Ya’ll don’t know if there’s kids in there?” The agent shot back. “If there’s kids in there we need to go in there.”
“Whoever is in charge will determine that,” the other officer responded.
According to an earlier account by Arredondo, he and the other officers tried to open the doors to the classrooms, but found them both locked and waited for a master key to arrive. But surveillance footage suggests that they never tried to open the doors, which a top Texas official has confirmed were never actually locked.
One officer has told reporters that within minutes of the police response, there was a Halligan bar, which firefighters use to break down locked doors, on-site, but it was never used.
At a special State Senate committee hearing Monday, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw called the police response an “abject failure” and “antithetical to everything we’ve learned over the last two decades since the Columbine massacre.”
“The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from (entering rooms) 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children,” he said. “The officers have weapons, the children had none.”
We make it a point to not include the names and pictures of those who may have been seeking attention or infamy and will not link out to websites that might contain such information.
U.S.
Ohio Governor Signs Bill Allowing Teachers to Carry Guns With 24 Hours of Training
Published
2 weeks agoon
June 14, 2022By
Chris Tolve
“They will have blood on their hands,” Ohio State Senator Theresa Fedor said.
Teachers to Bear Arms
Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine signed a bill into law Monday allowing teachers and other school staff to carry firearms on campus with a fraction of the training previously required.
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled last year that school employees need to complete 700 hours of training as a peace officer, as well as the permission from their school board before arming themselves, but Monday’s law changes that.
Starting in the fall, school staff will only have to complete up to 24 hours of initial training plus eight hours of requalification training each year.
DeWine directed the Ohio School Safety Center, which must approve any training programs, to order the maximum 24 hours and eight hours.
Four of those hours consist of scenario-based training and 20 more go toward first-aid training and history of school shootings and reunification education.
Individual school districts can still decide not to allow their staff to carry firearms. Last week, Cleveland’s mayor said the city will refuse to arm teachers, and Columbus has signaled it will not change its policy either.
Another Ohio law went into effect Monday allowing adults over the age of 21 to carry a concealed firearm without a permit, training, or background checks. It also ended the requirement for gun carriers to inform police officers if they have a concealed weapon on them unless specifically asked.
Communities shocked by Legislation
Coming just weeks after the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 students and two teachers, Monday’s law was not welcome by many Ohioans.
“I think it’s a horrible idea to arm our teachers,” Columbus Police Chief Elaine Bryant told The Columbus Dispatch. “There’s a lot of training that’s involved in that. It’s naïve to believe that is something we can put on them and expect them to respond to from a law enforcement perspective.”
More police, teachers, and gun control advocates expressed opposition to the legislation, with Democratic State Senator Theresa Fedor telling ABC the bill’s supporters “will have blood on their hands.”
“I’m a veteran classroom teacher of 18 years, been a legislator 22 years,” she said. “I have never seen a bill so poorly written, hurdled through the process. There’s so many flaws in the bill. There’s no minimum education standard, no psychological evaluation, no safe storage.”
A teacher identified as “Coach D” also spoke out against the law on YouTube.
“It took me 12 years of grade school, four years of undergrad, and two years of graduate school, not to mention continued education and professional development for years to be able to teach in my classroom,” he said. “I’ve now been doing that for over 20 years. But now, with only 24 hours of training in Ohio, I could be authorized to bring a lethal weapon into the classroom and expected to take on an active shooter, and then what? Go back to teaching word problems?”
At a Monday press conference, reporter Josh Rultenberg confronted DeWine with challenging questions, posting several videos of the exchange in a Twitter thread.
When asked if he would take accountability if this law allowed for a teacher to shoot the wrong kid, Dewine said that “in life we make choices, and we don’t always know what the outcome is going to be.”
“What this legislature has done, I’ve done by signing it, is giving schools an option based on their particular circumstances to make the best decision they can make with the best information they have,” he continued.
🧵I asked @GovMikeDeWine, if heaven forbid a teacher shoots the wrong kid, if he will take any accountability knowing he could have stopped it by not signing House Bill 99. Here's his response. @SpectrumNews1OH pic.twitter.com/Ixmc3k4tCZ
— Josh Rultenberg (@JoshRultNews) June 13, 2022
I asked @GovMikeDeWine about the argument of giving good guys guns to stop bad guys with guns. I point out the 77 minutes it took law enforcement in Uvalde to act. He gets combative and then gives this response. @SpectrumNews1OH pic.twitter.com/nF6RHrlqJ1
— Josh Rultenberg (@JoshRultNews) June 13, 2022
I asked @GovMikeDeWine, after @RepThomasHall said HB 99 is "Ohio doing something," if he thinks this is what the people in Dayton meant when they asked him to "do something." Here's his response. @SpectrumNews1OH pic.twitter.com/fYzSjAi5vf
— Josh Rultenberg (@JoshRultNews) June 13, 2022
See what others are saying: (The Guardian) (The Columbus Dispatch) (ABC)

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