The Jobs Apocalypse

It's becoming clear that pandemic unemployment will take years, and may never recover. Most Millennials never recovered from 2008, what can we hope this will do to them and GenZ?

What gives? Let's be honest, we've mismanaged the public health emergency. Texas, Arizona, Florida and other parts of the U.S. are seeing a surge, including even Beijing, China. Let's get real, America may never be great again. Weekly jobless claims stayed above 1 million for the 13th consecutive week as the coronavirus pandemic continued to hammer at the U.S. economy.

Half of African Americans are without a job. Women in the service sector have been dis-proportionally impacted. Travel, hospitality and retail are not seeing a great recovery like some have suggested. The economic data is not "better than expected".

Remember even before the Great Shutdown, the economy was slowing. The trade war was dragging on. The yield curve was inverting. The stock market is in a Real McCoy bubble. A debt crisis is coming, it's the worst economic outlook probably ever. Let's at least attempt to be honest with ourselves.

First-time claims for unemployment insurance totaled 1.5 million last week, well above the 1.3 million expected. There's no positive way to spin this. Well over 40 million Americans have filed for jobless claims. Workers receiving benefits under all programs including pandemic assistance totaled 29.1 million. One quarter of people in the labor market are essentially on the shelf, with dwindling savings.

The Middle class is deteriorating, in a system of Capitalism where it has already been suffering. The job apocalypse was have here is not something that just goes away even if we do get a vigorous V-shaped recovery, which is unlikely. This is a generational economic depression, and we already know this just six months into the Pandemic.

This is not the time for fake optimism, or dishonesty about how things are doing in your industry. This is the time for realism and finding pro-active solutions that are long-term. The elevated claims number persists even as all states have reopened to various extents, that my friends, is a sign of a Jobs apocalypse. Many businesses that have made it this far, won't be able to survive.

In greed is good and winner takes all Capitalism, the Great Shutdown has created a power-play for the Billionaire class where Darwinian rules apply.

The total of those receiving benefits to 29.1 million as of May 30, and Canada extended its CERB program for another 2 months. Being unemployed however, is not the full extent of our personal problems.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday specifically recommended that Congress extend unemployment insurance benefits, support state and local governments, and funnel more help to cash-strapped small businesses. The Fed understands the depths of this crisis. The Jobs Apocalypse is just one aspect of how bad the real economy actually is and how long it will take to recover.

What should we look forward to 2021? A debt crisis, a housing apocalypse, you know, the back drop of the actual data. America mismanaged the public health crisis to a marked degree and its ability to innovate is crippled compared to China. Meanwhile its stock market is bloated with Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Boeing and others taking too large a share of the entire NASDAQ 100, propping up a market divorced from reality.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. was experiencing what housing experts and advocates deemed an eviction crisis. Homelessness in America is going to become an even more major problem. Racism is just yet another symptom of systemic inequality. Capitalism is failing during the Pandemic, and the outlook is bleak.

A corporate debt crisis is looming, and unemployment will take years to next to never to recover. A group of well-known economists — Jason Furman, Timothy Geithner, Glenn Hubbard and Melissa Kearney — propose replacing the $600 weekly enhancement to unemployment benefits with up to $400 a week after July. But people don't want to go back to work given this environment of uncertainty.

The Pandemic will last far longer than people realize. The worst part is we are being dishonest with ourselves if we think a V-shaped recovery will save us. A wave of unemployed young male retail investors are literally gambling pump and dump stocks with nothing to do at home. They are transferring what little wealth they have left to the whales there.

America won't have Covid-19 under control any time soon. The Autumn wave of the pandemic will be significant. Without mandatory mask wearing and social distancing we'll be living in limbo for months.

Mass transit is discredited, retail store traffic is down at least 80%. Unemployment is the baseline of millions of North Americans who aren't going anywhere any time soon. Capitalism is favoring the elite more than ever, and the American empire is crumbling before our eyes.