Another 900,000 Americans Filed For Unemployment Last Week—There’s Hope That President Biden’s Economic And Health Programs Can Turn Things Around

It’s another week and another 900,000 Americans have filed for unemployment benefits, according to the United States Department of Labor. Additionally, in the last month of 2020, employers slashed 140,000 jobs. The data shows that layoffs are stubbornly going strong.

Roughly 75.6 million initial jobless claims were filed during the pandemic. This mind-numbing figure represents approximately 47% of the nation’s workforce. The claims are representative of the mounting layoffs. They are far above the pre-Covid-19 peak of 695,000 and greater than any previous recession on record, tracing back to 1967. The Labor Department reported that Americans have claimed “16 million weeks worth of state and federal jobless benefits in the week ending Jan. 2.”

Economists attribute the job losses to the continued presence of Covid-19. The outbreak has stopped people from going out and spending money. One of the hardest-hit sectors is the hospitality industry. Restaurants, hotels, airlines, concert venues, movie theaters, travel, resorts, casinos and other businesses that require large gatherings have bore the brunt of the economic fallout. For example, this area lost almost 500,000 jobs in January.

Disturbingly, continuing claims, an indication of the amount of people who are still collecting unemployment benefits, have increased too. Nearly 20 million people were still receiving unemployment benefits of some kind. About 11.6 million Americans who are in the gig economy or are contract workers have made claims via the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation programs.

Wall Street has been hitting new highs, as the unemployment rate remains uncomfortably high. There is some light ahead. President Joe Biden has plans to enact a $1.9 trillion stimulus plan that would enhance jobless benefits and provide direct checks to households. This is on top of the prior $900 billion package Congress passed last month.

Biden believes that his Build Back Better program would create new jobs, as monies would be deployed to rebuild the nation’s bridges, tunnels, highways, airports and other infrastructure. Biden also promised to aggressively deal with disease and ramp up vaccines, which would instill confidence in reopening the economy. This would then create new jobs and companies would take back people who were furloughed.

The combination of financial stimulus, a massive infrastructure program and a full-out war against Covid-19 should significantly alter the outcome and mood of the country. Businesses and schools would reopen and people can live their lives like before. There could be a new era of creating new jobs.