The Economy is much worse than you think

The economy and the unemployment situation is pretty bad.

In the first week of July, nearly 1.5 million Americans were receiving unemployment benefits from the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation and Short-Term Compensation programs.

For the week ending April 11, the first week for which data on the programs is available, PEUC and STC programs counted a little over 62,000 and 27,000 claimants each–both programs have seen approximately 15-fold increases in about three months’ time.

Pandemic-specific unemployment insurance programs are spiking, showing greater job losses and weakness in the economy.

The continuous increase in PEUC claims shows that Americans are staying unemployed for longer. Businesses that have not laid off employees yet have been cutting their hours and having the government fill in the gaps.

Pandemic-specific programs have increased government spending this month, and totaled $1.1 trillion, according to CBO estimates –compared to 2019, this is about a $763 billion increase.

The unemployment picture looks to be worsening right as the $600 in additional federal unemployment assistance expires.

According to the Census Bureau’s weekly Household Pulse Survey published Wednesday, the number of employed Americans declined by about 6.7 million from mid-June through mid-July, including a 4.1 million fall from the first to the second week of July.

Yelp reported that its tally of business closures that had been declining consistently since March has stalled out with temporary business closures now turning to permanent ones. Yelp noted that permanent closures now account for 55% of all closed businesses since March 1, an increase of 14% from June.

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Wayne Creed

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