The economic downturn that we are currently experiencing is making the last recession look like a Sunday picnic. Yes, 2008 and 2009 were bad, but they weren’t anything like this. Unprecedented intervention by the Federal Reserve has allowed the rich to get even richer during this crisis, but meanwhile millions upon millions of ordinary Americans are deeply suffering. Unfortunately, what we have gone through so far is just the beginning.
As a child, I was a big fan of Sesame Street, and one of the characters that really stood out to me was Count von Count. I loved the fact that he was always counting things, and that is what I am going to do in this article in order to illustrate how bad economic conditions have now become.
Let’s start with the number 7. According to the Congressional Budget Office, approximately 7 million more Americans would have jobs right now if the COVID pandemic had never happened…
But in fact, what the CBO is projecting is dire: around 7 million people out of work in 2021 whom CBO thought before the pandemic would be working. That’s dire – and a call to immediate action, not calm, not wait-and-see.
Personally, I think that estimate is way too low.
In fact, the Federal Reserve says that 152 million Americans were working before the pandemic started, and only 142 million Americans are working now.
So the CBO estimate appears to be off by about 3 million.
Count von Count would not be happy.
Let’s try another number. According to Bloomberg, the number of Americans living in poverty has risen by 8 million during this crisis…
Support is rising among policy makers to address America’s child-poverty crisis, which is getting worse as the pandemic drags on.
More than 8 million Americans — including many children — fell into poverty during the second half of last year, exacerbating the racial and income inequalities that are holding back the U.S. economy.
In this case, I think that this is a reasonable estimate, but that number will inevitably keep growing in the months ahead.
One of the big reasons why it will continue to rise is because hordes of small businesses will be collapsing, and that brings us to our next number.- READ MORE
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