Coronavirus Economic Weekly News 06December 2020

Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666

News posted last week about economic effects related to the coronavirus 2019-nCoV (aka SARS-CoV-2), which produces COVID-19 disease, has been surveyed and some articles are summarized here. We cover the latest economic data, especially renewed talk of coronavirus relief bill, the latest employment data, housing market reports, mortgage delinquencies & forbearance, layoffs, lockdowns, and schools, as well as GDP. The bulk of the news is from the U.S., with a few articles from overseas at the end. (Picture below is morning rush hour in downtown Chicago, 20 March 2020.) News items about epidemiology and other medical news for the virus are reported in a companion article.

Please share this article – Go to very top of page, right hand side, for social media buttons.

Fed, Treasury agree to extend four lending facilities to March 31 – The Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department have agreed to extend the life of four emergency lending facilities, created in response to the coronavirus pandemic, to March 31. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin sent a letter to Fed Chair Jerome Powell Monday approving the extension of the Fed’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility, Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility, the Primary Dealer Credit Facility and the Paycheck Protection Program Liquidity Facility. The first two use funding from Treasury’s exchange stabilization fund, while the other two do not. “I am pleased that the Federal Reserve Board unanimously voted to approve these extensions, and I am proud of the work our teams have done to successfully execute these programs,” Mnuchin said in a press release. The 90-day extension “will facilitate planning by potential facility participants and provide certainty that the facilities will continue to be available through the first quarter of 2021 to help the economy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic,” the Fed added in its own release. The agreement to lengthen the life of those facilities follows an exchange Mnuchin and Powell had earlier this month, in which Mnuchin requested that the Fed vote to extend the four programs for 90 days past Dec. 31. Mnuchin also asked that the central bank return money appropriated by Congress for five separate emergency lending programs, which will shut down at the end of this year. The Fed had pushed back against Treasury’s request to return the funds, saying in a statement that the central bank “would prefer that the full suite of emergency facilities established during the coronavirus pandemic continue to serve their important role as a backstop for our still-strained and vulnerable economy.” But Powell later agreed to return the unused money, which was used to fund the Main Street Lending Program, the Municipal Liquidity Facility, the Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility, the Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility and the Term Asset-Backed Loan Facility. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, which is administering the Main Street program, issued guidance to lenders last week that they should submit loans for approval by Dec. 14, adding that it would be unlikely that any loans submitted after that point would be processed in time to be purchased by the Main Street special-purpose vehicle.

Powell Says Fed Actions Unlocked $2 Trillion to Support Economy – WSJ – Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank’s actions to backstop a range of credit markets after the coronavirus convulsed Wall Street this past spring had unlocked almost $2 trillion to support businesses, cities and states. In testimony prepared for delivery at a congressional hearing Tuesday, Mr. Powell said the Fed’s unprecedented steps to stabilize financial markets had largely succeeded in restoring the flow of credit from private lenders. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Nov. 19 told Mr. Powell that he would not grant extensions for five lending programs that have backstopped markets for corporate and municipal debt and to purchase loans made to small businesses and nonprofits when those programs expire on Dec. 31. Mr. Powell didn’t elaborate in his testimony, released on Monday afternoon, about the central bank’s disagreement with Mr. Mnuchin’s decision. The Fed had earlier said it would have preferred the lending programs had stayed open because the pandemic emergency hasn’t receded. Mr. Mnuchin is slated to testify alongside Mr. Powell at Tuesday’s hearing and didn’t address the conflict in his prepared testimony. Mr. Mnuchin’s decision to allow the programs to expire on Dec. 31 intensified a partisan divide over the Fed’s lending activities, which both parties supported as part of the $2 trillion stimulus package known as the Cares Act approved in March.Mr. Mnuchin says the programs are no longer needed because markets have healed. Second, he says he lacks the authority to extend the programs because he believes the Cares Act doesn’t allow for the programs to continue. Third, Mr. Mnuchin says the money would be better spent on other relief measures for which Congress can’t agree on funding.Earlier Monday, the Fed said it had extended through next March four backstop lending programs that helped to stabilize short-term funding markets when the coronavirus pandemic hit this past spring.The extensions were widely expected and don’t apply to any of the lending programs that Mr. Mnuchin declined to renew.Mr. Mnuchin had indicated he would agree to extend four programs, including the Paycheck Protection Program Liquidity Facility, which made it more attractive for small banks to fund PPP loans this past spring. The Fed agreed to extend that program on Monday. The Fed also extended the Commercial Paper Funding Facility, which backed a critical market for short-term corporate IOUs that seized up this past March, and the Money Market Fund Liquidity Facility, which had likewise curtailed potential runs on money-market mutual funds.

Fed’s Beige Book: “modest or moderate” Growth in Economic Activity, Some Districts see “No growth” – Fed’s Beige Book “This report was prepared at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia based on information collected on or before November 20, 2020.” Most Federal Reserve Districts have characterized economic expansion as modest or moderate since the prior Beige Book period. However, four Districts described little or no growth, and five narratives noted that activity remained below pre-pandemic levels for at least some sectors. Moreover, Philadelphia and three of the four Midwestern Districts observed thatactivity began to slow in early November as COVID-19 cases surged. Reports tended to indicate higher-than-average growth of manufacturing, distribution and logistics, homebuilding, and existing home sales, although not without disruptions. Banking contacts in numerous Districts reported some deterioration of loan portfolios, particularly for commercial lending into the retail and leisure and hospitality sectors. An increase in delinquencies in 2021 is more widely anticipated. Most Districts reported that firms’ outlooks remained positive; however, optimism has waned–many contacts cited concerns over the recent pandemic wave, mandated restrictions (recent and prospective), and the looming expiration dates for unemployment benefits and for moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures…. Nearly all Districts reported that employment rose, but for most, the pace was slow, at best, and the recovery remained incomplete. Firms that were hiring continued to report difficulties in attracting and retaining workers. Many contacts noted that the sharp rise in COVID-19 cases had precipitated more school and plant closings and renewed fears of infection, which have further aggravated labor supply problems, including absenteeism and attrition. Providing for childcare and virtual schooling needs was widely cited as a significant and growing issue for the workforce, especially for women – prompting some firms to extend greater accommodations for flexible work schedules. In several Districts, firms feared that employment levels would fall over the winter before recovering further. Despite hiring difficulties, firms in most Districts reported that wages grew at a slight or modest pace overall. However, many noted greater pressure to raise rates for low-skilled workers, especially in outlying areas. Staffing firms described greater placement success with competitive rates, and one firm instituted a minimum wage rate for its industrial clients. CR Note: The pandemic is depressing activity again. Also note the concern about some commercial lending.

Beige Book Darkens As 4 Of 12 District Sees “Little Or No Growth”, Optimism Wanes On New Lockdowns – While superficially the Fed’s latest Beige Book, which was based on data collected before Nov 20, toed the “modest recovery” party line with most of the Fed 12 district characterizing economic expansion as the trite “modest or moderate”, it certainly had a dark shadow as four districts described “little or no growth”, while five narratives noted that activity remained below pre-pandemic levels for at least some sectors. Worse, Philadelphia and three of the four Midwestern Districts observed that activity began to slow in early November as COVID-19 cases surged. This deterioration, however, was offset by reports which indicated higher-than-average growth of manufacturing, distribution and logistics, homebuilding, and existing home sales, “although not without disruptions.” Continuing the trend of pain in CRE, districts also reported “some deterioration of loan portfolios, particularly for commercial lending into the retail and leisure and hospitality sectors.” As a result, an increase in delinquencies in 2021 is more widely anticipated. And while most districts reported that firms’ outlooks remained positive, optimism has waned – many contacts cited concerns over the recent pandemic wave, mandated restrictions (recent and prospective), and the looming expiration dates for unemployment benefits and for moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures. Focusing on employment, the data was modestly good as nearly all Districts reported that employment rose, but for most, the pace was slow, at best, and the recovery remained incomplete. Those firms that were hiring continued to report difficulties in attracting and retaining workers, while the sharp rise in COVID-19 cases had precipitated more school and plant closings and renewed fears of infection, which have further aggravated labor supply problems, including absenteeism and attrition. Providing for childcare and virtual schooling needs was widely cited as a significant and growing issue for the workforce, especially for women – prompting some firms to extend greater accommodations for flexible work schedules. In several Districts, firms feared that employment levels would fall over the winter before recovering further. Despite hiring difficulties, firms in most Districts reported that wages grew at a slight or modest pace overall. However, many noted greater pressure to raise rates for low-skilled workers, especially in outlying areas. Staffing firms described greater placement success with competitive rates, and one firm instituted a minimum wage rate for its industrial clients. In what may comes as a shock to the Fed, firms in most districts reported modest to moderate increases of input prices, while the selling prices of final goods rose at a slight to modest pace. Contacts noted that COVID-19 cases have caused ongoing disruptions and delays among short-staffed producers and shippers – raising transportation costs, which are then passed through to buyers. Looking at the word count of the beige book, there was a fractional improvement in the “slowness” category with 30 instances of “slow” in December, down from 31 in October, although concerns about covid clearly jumped with mentions of covid or coronavirus spiking from 41 to 53 in December, the most since April.

Seven High Frequency Indicators for the Economy – NOTE: Some of this data was impacted by Thanksgiving. For example, transit data is always down during holidays. These indicators are mostly for travel and entertainment. It will interesting to watch these sectors recover as the vaccine is distributed. The TSA is providing daily travel numbers. This data shows the seven day average of daily total traveler throughput from the TSA for 2019 (Blue) and 2020 (Red). This data is as of Nov 29th. The seven day average is down 61% from last year (39% of last year). The second graph shows the 7 day average of the year-over-year change in diners as tabulated by OpenTable for the US and several selected cities. This data is updated through November 28, 2020. This data is “a sample of restaurants on the OpenTable network across all channels: online reservations, phone reservations, and walk-ins. For year-over-year comparisons by day, we compare to the same day of the week from the same week in the previous year.” Note that dining is generally lower in the northern states – Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York – and only down slightly in the southern states. This data shows domestic box office for each week (red) and the maximum and minimum for the previous four years. Data is from BoxOfficeMojo through November 26th. Movie ticket sales have picked up slightly over the last couple of months, and were at $12 million last week (compared to usually around $300 million per week during the Thanksgiving blockbuster period). This graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four week average. This data is through November 21st. Hotel occupancy is currently down 32.6% year-over-year. This table shows the year-over-year change since the week ending Sept 19, 2020: This graph, based on weekly data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), shows gasoline supplied compared to the same week last year of . At one point, gasoline supplied was off almost 50% YoY. As of November 20th, gasoline supplied was off about 11.7% YoY (about 88.3% of last year). This graph is from Apple mobility. “This data is generated by counting the number of requests made to Apple Maps for directions in select countries/regions, sub-regions, and cities.” There is also some great data on mobility from the Dallas Fed Mobility and Engagement Index. This data is through November 28th for the United States and several selected cities. The graph is the running 7 day average to remove the impact of weekends. According to the Apple data directions requests, public transit in the 7 day average for the US is at 44% of the January level. It is at 31% in Chicago, and 49% in Houston – and declining recently. Here is some interesting data on New York subway usage (HT BR). This graph is from Todd W Schneider. This data is through Friday, November 27th. Schneider has graphs for each borough, and links to all the data sources. >He notes: “Data updates weekly from the MTA’s public turnstile data, usually on Saturday mornings”.

Risks of a Double Dip Rising? – Menzie Chinn – That’s the message all around: The Hill “Slowing job growth raises fears of double-dip recession” (see alsothis), a CNN article has subheading “Double-dip recession fears”, Fortune has “TIAA CEO Roger Ferguson thinks we could be headed for a ‘double-dip recession'”, while CNBC “Virus surge is leading to a double-dip recession and dollar crash, economist Stephen Roach warns”.We’ll have a bit more evidence one way or the other respecting the imminence of a relapse with tomorrow’s November employment release. Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll employment (dark blue), Bloomberg consensus for employment as of 11/25 (light blue square), industrial production (red), personal income excluding transfers in Ch.2012$ (green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2012$ (black), and monthly GDP in Ch.2012$ (pink), all log normalized to 2020M02=0. Source: BLS, Federal Reserve, BEA, via FRED, IHS Markit (nee Macroeconomic Advisers) (12/1 release), NBER, Bloomberg (as of 12/3), and author’s calculations.I’ve included Bloomberg’s consensus as of today for tomorrow’s release (assuming no revision to October numbers). As I noted a couple days ago with respect to the employment series, “The November expected growth rate keeps on getting marked down; it was 4.5% about a week ago, that itself down from about 5% from a couple weeks ago.” It’s now 3.9% vs 4% a couple days ago.High frequency indicators show a distinct softening in the labor market such that one shouldn’t be too surprised if the job growth number comes in essentially at zero; from The Hill.Homebase also reported that declines in the number of businesses open, employees working and hours worked showed an economy just as weak as it was before summer’s jobs rebound, a foreboding sign for Friday’s employment report from the Labor Department. From Deutsche Bank today: Source: DB Covid Impact Tracker, 3 December 2020.Even if growth is positive in November, most of the concern is centered on Q1, in the wake of lapsing fiscal support (under current law).Next stimulus bill: $908 billion bipartisan proposal vs. ‘skinny’ $500 billion plan – Two stimulus bills are butting heads in Washington this week, each one vying to become the successful federal aid package for the end of 2020. It’s been nearly nine months after Congress passed the CARES Act in March to provide a range of economic aid to individuals and families. And at the end of December, the final safeguards expire, leaving tens of millions of people to face hunger, debt, potential job loss and evictionas the final dollars run out. The difference between the stimulus candidates is rather stark. First, there’s the size of the proposals. A bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives introduced a $908 billion framework, compared to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s roughly $500 billion (we think) revision of a Senate Republican plan. Neither one includes a second stimulus payment this time around, but another direct payment for qualified individuals could appear in 2021 (here’s why). Then there’s the support behind the two bills. The $908 billion proposal is backed by a group of Republican and Democratic senators, and has the conditional support of top US leaders, including President-elect Joe Biden and a growing number of Republicans. (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer backed it as “the basis for immediate” negotiations.) McConnell’s $500 “skinny” bill, however, failed to advance in the Senate, most recently in September. The last major category of differences comes down to the major programs the two bills support and how much money they might allocate as a bridge until another bill in 2021. Here are the major categories of funding currently under discussion.

Senator Wyden Calls Mnuchin’s Grab of CARES Act Money “Sabotage.” Wyden Has a Right to be Suspicious of Mnuchin — Pam Martens – On November 25, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon Tweeted this: “The Trump administration is working harder to sabotage the economy and tie the Biden administration’s hands than it is to help working families survive a pandemic.” Wyden’s Tweet included a clip from a Bloomberg News article about how U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was planning to move $455 billion of CARES Act money to the General Fund of the Treasury so that the next Treasury Secretary in the Biden administration wouldn’t be able to use it to help bolster the economy. That same Bloomberg News article included this sentence: “The money in question includes $429 billion that Mnuchin is clawing back from the Fed – which backed some of the central bank’s emergency lending facilities … ” But as we detailed last Friday, 75 percent of the $454 billion that the CARES Act earmarked for emergency lending programs at the Fed to help struggling Americans and businesses survive the pandemic and support bank lending was never handed over to those programs by Mnuchin. All that the Fed has been reporting on its weekly financial statements for months is $114 billion from the Treasury for these programs. The breakdown of that $114 billion is as follows, according to the Fed’s weekly H.4.1 financial statements: $10 billion for the Commercial Paper Funding Facility; $37.5 billion for the Corporate Credit Facilities to buy up corporate bonds and Exchange Traded Funds; $37.5 billion for the Main Street Lending Facilities for loans to small and mid-size businesses; $17.5 billion for the Municipal Liquidity Facility to support municipal bond issuance; $10 billion for the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility; and $1.5 billion for the Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility. Under the structure of the Fed’s emergency lending programs, it has the ability to leverage the money coming from the Treasury by as much as 10-to-1 to expand its lending programs, if the situation warrants. Wyden has very good reasons to be suspicious of Mnuchin’s motives. During Mnuchin’s Senate confirmation hearing on January 19, 2017, Wyden made the not-so-subtle suggestion that Mnuchin had falsified his financial disclosures to the Senate Committee. Wyden said this: “Mr. Mnuchin, a month ago you signed documents and an affidavit that omitted the Cayman Island fund, almost $100 million of real estate, six shell companies and a hedge fund in Anguilla. This was not self-corrected. The only reason it came to light was my staff found it and told you it had to be corrected.” Wyden further described Mnuchin’s unfitness for the job of U.S. Treasury Secretary as follows during the Senate confirmation hearing: “In early 2009, Mr. Mnuchin led a group of investors that purchased a bank called IndyMac, renaming it OneWest. OneWest was truly unique. While Mr. Mnuchin was CEO, OneWest proved it could put more vulnerable people on the street faster than just about anybody else around. “While he was CEO, a OneWest vice president admitted in a court proceeding to ‘robo-signing’ upward of 750 foreclosure documents a week. She spent less than 30 seconds on each, and in fact, she had shortened her signature to speed the process along. Investigations found that the bank frequently mishandled documents and skipped over reviewing them. All it took to plunge families into the nightmare of potentially losing their homes was 30 seconds of sloppy paperwork and a few haphazard signatures.

After CARES Act clash, Mnuchin and Powell unite over need for more aid – Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell have had their disagreements recently about the fate of emergency relief funds mandated by the last big stimulus bill. But on Wednesday they were more united in pushing House lawmakers to pass additional stimulus before the end of the year. Mnuchin and Powell testified to the House Financial Services Committee, where they were pressed by lawmakers from both parties about how Congress should address the continued economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. Mnuchin urged lawmakers to deploy unused funds for the Paycheck Protection Program to provide loans to small businesses in dire need of assistance. Prior stimulus had earmarked $659 billion for the PPP to offer forgivable loans through third-party banks. But no loans have been made since an Aug. 8 statutory deadline, even though funds are still available. “My single highest priority would be to activate the $140 billion in PPP funds that are not spent that we could immediately send out to the hardest-hit small businesses whose revenue is down dramatically,” Mnuchin said. In urging Congress to pass another pandemic relief bill, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, left, said lawmakers should “start with the labor market.” Powell added that Congress should extend enhanced unemployment insurance that expires at the end of the year. The previous stimulus package provided unemployed workers an extra $600 a week until July 31, but President Trump signed an executive memo extending the enhanced unemployment benefit at $400 a week through December. “There are many sectors than can use some help. … I would start with the labor market,” said Powell. “There’s still 10 million people who are out of work because of the pandemic.” The comments from Mnuchin and Powell came as lawmakers are negotiating additional stimulus legislation months after Congress passed the original Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act in March. Treasury and the Fed have previously been at odds over CARES Act funds that back some of the Fed’s emergency credit programs, with Mnuchin requesting that the Fed return any unused money in order to shut down the facilities at year-end. The central bank, meanwhile, has said it would prefer to keep the facilities open. Lawmakers from both parties appeared willing to move forward on passing additional relief. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has poured cold water on the legislation.

McConnell offering new coronavirus relief bill after talks with Mnuchin, Meadows – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday circulated a new coronavirus relief proposal that could garner support from the White House among Senate Republicans on Tuesday. McConnell, during a weekly press conference on Tuesday, said he had been speaking with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about what President Trump could sign. “I think we have a sense of what that is. … We’re going to send that out to all the offices and get some feedback to see how our members react,” McConnell said. “We don’t have time for messaging games. We don’t have time for lengthy negotiations,” McConnell added. Congress is quickly running out of time to pass lame-duck legislation with the House poised to leave as soon as next week. Congress faces a Dec. 11 government funding deadline and McConnell said any coronavirus relief will ride on that. McConnell previously twice offered a roughly $500 billion coronavirus relief bill that was rejected by Democrats. McConnell outlined the bill during a GOP caucus call on Tuesday, but did not provide details during his press conference about if there are any substantive differences between that in the new bill. But the proposal, according to a copy of the outline obtained by The Hill, would provide protections against coronavirus-related lawsuits, extend unemployment insurance for roughly a month and provide another round of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) small business assistance. It would also provide more money for the Postal Service, schools, testing and vaccine distribution. McConnell’s decision to offer a new proposal comes as months of talks with the White House and Democratic leadership over a fifth coronavirus bill have failed to get results, despite cases climbing across the country. If Congress is going to pass additional relief, McConnell said he expected it would be folded into a must-pass government funding bill. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) have pointed to $2.2 trillion as their starting point. McConnell said the two Democratic leaders made him a new offer on coronavirus relief on Monday. A spokesman for Schumer didn’t immediately respond to a question about the offer. Pelosi, in a statement, said she had raised the prospects of another coronavirus bill with Mnuchin. “Secretary Mnuchin said he would be reviewing the proposal Leader Schumer and I made to Leader McConnell and Leader McCarthy last night and the bipartisan Senate proposal unveiled today. Additional COVID relief is long overdue and must be passed in this lame duck session,” she said.

Additional PPP funding included in $908 billion stimulus proposal – A bipartisan group of senators unveiled a $908 billion stimulus proposal Tuesday in an effort to break a monthslong impasse that’s now threatening to tip the economy back into contraction. Neither Republican nor Democratic leadership has signed on to the plan, however, leaving it facing the same long odds that a failed bipartisan House proposal faced before Election Day. President-elect Joe Biden has so far backed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has pushed a $2.4 trillion bill. Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who have been the two main negotiators on a stimulus package, are scheduled to talk by telephone later in the day, according to a person familiar with the matter. The topics include the spending bill needed to keep the government running and pandemic relief. Under the proposed compromise being pitched by the bipartisan group, small businesses would get a roughly $300 billion infusion for a version of the Paycheck Protection Program of forgivable loans and other aid, and state and local governments would get about $240 billion, including money for schools, according to three people familiar with the proposal. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Mark Warner, D-Va., are among backers for the new bipartisan stimulus proposal.Bloomberg NewsAnother $180 billion would go to an extension of pandemic unemployment benefits, providing an additional $300-a-week for four months. Transportation including airlines, airports, transit and Amtrak would get $45 billion in funding, a person familiar with the plan said. Vaccines, testing and tracing would get $16 billion and health care providers $35 billion. Some $25 billion would go to rental assistance, $26 billion for nutrition and agriculture, $10 billion for the U.S. Postal Service, $10 billion for child care, $10 billion for broadband and $5 billion for opioid treatment. The package would include a short-term moratorium on liability lawsuits related to COVID-19 – a more sweeping version of which has been pressed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and opposed by Democratic leaders – to give states time to enact their own laws if they choose. The bipartisan proposal was reported earlier by The Washington Post. Speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday morning, McConnell made no mention of the new bipartisan push for relief, continuing to blame Democrats for seeking a package that is unrealistic and too costly. While U.S. stocks have shrugged off the risk of a year-end fiscal cliff, with investors encouraged by the prospect of coronavirus vaccines, economists have increasingly warned that the economy is in danger of a renewed contraction in the first quarter of 2021. Pandemic-related unemployment benefits are set to expire at year-end, while many businesses are getting squeezed by lockdowns as COVID-19 cases surge. Retail sales gains have weakened, and jobless claims remain stubbornly higher than the peak hit during the 2007-09 recession. Backers of the new plan include Republican Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney and Bill Cassidy along with Democratic Senators Joe Manchin, Mark Warner, Jeanne Shaheen and independent Angus King. Members of the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus, which put forward a compromise during the fall that was rejected by Pelosi, also plan to endorse the new attempt.

McConnell shoots down bipartisan $900 billion coronavirus stimulus plan as stalemate drags on — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rejected a proposed bipartisan coronavirus stimulus package Tuesday amid months of congressional inaction on curbing the economic damage from the outbreak. The Kentucky Republican, who has supported about $500 billion in new aid spending, said he wants to pass what he called a “targeted relief bill” this year. McConnell said he spoke to White House officials about what President Donald Trump would sign into law. He plans to offer potential solutions to GOP senators and get their feedback. “We just don’t have time to waste time,” he told reporters in response to the roughly $908 billion plan put together by bipartisan members of the GOP-controlled Senate and Democratic-held House. McConnell said a must-pass spending bill and pandemic relief provisions will “all likely come in one package.” Congress needs to approve funding legislation by Dec. 11 to avoid a government shutdown. The framework of the bipartisan relief bill released Tuesday includes $288 billion in small business aid such as Paycheck Protection Program loans, $160 billion in state and local government relief, and $180 billion to fund a $300 per week supplemental unemployment benefit through March. It would put $16 billion into vaccine distribution, testing and contact tracing, funnel $82 billion into education, and put $45 billion into transportation. It would allocate funds for rental assistance, child care and broadband. The proposal would not include another direct payment to most Americans. It also would offer temporary federal protection from coronavirus-related lawsuits – a provision Democrats have opposed – while states determine their own laws. Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, a member of the congressional group that has discussed a new relief plan, earlier called it an “interim package” to provide support until President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January. “If there’s one thing I’m hearing uniformly it’s: ‘Congress, do not leave town for the holidays leaving the country and the economy adrift with all these initial CARES [Act] programs running out,'”.

Covid stimulus help for desperate ICU nurses is urgent. But Congress is on vacation. I have been an ICU nurse for 17 years. I never thought I’d leave. Now I’m not sure I’ll ever go back. I’ve been on the front lines of Covid-19 since it broke out eight months ago. More than 250,000 people have now died in the United States. Case numbers are rising in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. And health care workers like me are burning out. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump spends his weekends golfing, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sent the Senate home for Thanksgiving vacation a day early, even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention justadvised against holiday travel. I wish medical workers could take vacation days, too. I ran out of those months ago, when I contracted Covid-19 treating patients in the ICU. I’m exhausted. I’m angry. I’m sick of watching patients die. I’m tired of comforting families feeling guilty over the birthday party that cost their loved one’s life. I finally hit my breaking point and recently quit doing direct patient care in a hospital setting. Without sufficient personal protective equipment and staffed hospital beds, a national plan for testing and sufficient relief for those hardest hit by the virus, including hospitals, I didn’t have the strength to continue. A lot of my colleagues are hitting their breaking points, too, and that could lead to a mass exodus from the profession. Americans worry about their local grocery stores’ running out of paper towels and toilet paper. Just imagine how much more worried they’ll be if their local hospitals, overwhelmed by surges of Covid-19 patients, run out of nurses. Our leaders have left it up to medical workers to save American lives, but they’ve denied us the resources to do so. I can’t fathom why they’re on vacation when there is so much work to do. Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, and Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, are trying to negotiate a stimulus bill based on the updated HEROES Act that the House passed in October. This legislation would fund a national testing plan to reduce the spread of the coronavirus and increase capacity in hospitals. It would also give states funds for protective equipment and adequate staffing in front-line occupations. But instead of voting on this before the holidays, our lawmakers have left town. In the ICU, I was treating the sickest patients I’d ever seen, under the most difficult conditions. Usually a nurse is responsible for one ICU patient at a time to ensure proper care, but I was pulled in all directions with multiple patients as the hospitals I worked at in New York City and Phoenix exceeded capacity.I’d be in one patient’s room when my other patient’s infusions ran dry next door. I’d have to run in before the pump died or the line clotted or their blood pressure crashed. I’d be preparing medications for a patient, and suddenly a group of nurses would have to rush off to assist another acutely ill patient. I would be left to “keep an eye on” all of their critical patients in the meantime.

As Congress weighs new stimulus, senators spar over old one’s demise – Senators sparred on Tuesday over the termination of several of the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending facilities as Congress continues to debate additional coronavirus stimulus legislation. At a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin defended the termination of emergency lending facilities authorized by the Coronavirus, Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, as well as the return of excess funds to the Treasury Department. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who appeared before the committee, urged Congress to enact additional fiscal relief as the coronavirus pandemic continues to hit businesses and families. Mnuchin’s testimony was met with support from Republican senators, who said he was simply following the law. Democrats, on the other hand, criticized Treasury for inhibiting the ability of the incoming Democratic administration to stabilize the economy as the pandemic continues. “I agree with Secretary Mnuchin on the success of the 13(3) facilities and the termination language in the CARES Act,” said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho. “The 13(3) facilities funded under the CARES Act were effective, and fulfilled their purpose to stabilize markets, facilitate credit flow and provide liquidity.” But Sen. Sherrod Brown, the top Democrat on the panel, criticized Treasury’s request as a political ploy to hamper the incoming administration’s ability to tackle the economic hardships when it assumes office next year. President-elect Joe Biden has already announced his intent to nominate former Fed Chair Janet Yellen to succeed Mnuchin at Treasury. “After the election, you canceled the Federal Reserve lending programs, taking away critical tools to invest in the people and communities and small businesses that make this country work,” Brown said. “There is no legitimate justification for it. Either you’re purposefully trying to stop President-elect Biden and Janet Yellen from getting to work for the people we all serve, or you’re so delusional that you think because the stock market is back up, everything is fine.” Mnuchin said that the funds allocated in the CARES Act for the Fed’s facilities were intended to be used temporarily. “My decision not to extend these facilities was not an economic decision,” Mnuchin said. “I’m surprised to hear Sen. Brown use words like ‘sabotage, no legitimate justification, delusional, malpractice.’ … This is perfectly clear. The Senate provided unprecedented authority to the secretary of the Treasury in giving me $500 billion. The statute was very clear. I find it implausible that any member of this committee believes that in voting for the CARES Act you were authorizing me to invest $500 billion to make loans in perpetuity.” Powell, on the other hand, said that the Fed would have maintained the emergency lending programs if the Treasury Department did not request their termination. “Our thinking is that we would have left the facilities in place to be backstops,” Powell said. “We don’t question the secretary’s decision about the CARES Act money, because that’s entirely his decision to make, but I think central banks generally would’ve done that.” Republican senators backed Mnuchin’s move and argued that Congress should enact new legislation to support coronavirus relief programs.

1 Percent of P.P.P. Borrowers Got Over One-Quarter of the Loan Money – The New York Times – The Paycheck Protection Program was the centerpiece of the federal government’s relief efforts to keep millions of small businesses afloat during the coronavirus pandemic. But new data shows what many had suspected all along: The money was shared unevenly, with the biggest sums going to a sliver of the companies in need. Detailed loan information released by the Small Business Administration late on Tuesday showed that a mere 1 percent of the program’s 5.2 million borrowers – those seeking $1.4 million and above – received more than a quarter of the $523 billion disbursed. About 600 businesses – including powerful law firms like Boies Schiller Flexner, restaurants like the steakhouse chain started by Ted Turner, as well as the operator of New York’s biggest horse tracks – received the maximum loan amount of $10 million, according to the data. It was the first full accounting of how federal money was spent through the program. Aimed at small companies – generally those with 500 or fewer workers – the program provided forgivable loans to desperate business owners who were faced with widespread shutdowns. But the program allowed businesses to take enough money to cover only a couple of months’ expenses, and it has come under criticism for its poorly defined rules and a hasty and haphazard rollout that allowed fraudsters to tap into the money, which will take years of litigation to sort out. The newly released data also includes details of loans made under the Economic Injury Disaster Loan system, a longstanding Small Business Administration program that was vastly expanded to offer relief to businesses affected by the pandemic. Together, the two programs spread more than $700 billion to struggling companies in just a few months. The loan data was released under an order by Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in Washington, who rejected the S.B.A.’s request to keep the information confidential. Previously released data on the paycheck program contained only ranges for larger loan amounts, and no information about loans under $150,000. Calling the program “vast in both size and sweep,” Judge Boasberg wrote in a ruling last month that “the weighty public interest in disclosure easily overcomes the far narrower privacy interest of borrowers who collectively received billions of taxpayer dollars in loans.” A tiny fraction of high-value loans made up a substantial portion of total P.P.P. money handed out With virus case counts rising rapidly and public health experts predicting a dark winter ahead, small businesses remain fearful about their survival. Many have used up their allotted aid, which was intended to cover up to two months of payroll costs and a handful of other expenses. Many owners say they would immediately apply for additional funds if available, but the rules permit only a single loan, and there has been little movement toward breaking a monthslong stalemate in Washington over additional aid.

White House and Congress clash over liability protections for businesses as firms cautiously weigh virus reopening plans – Congressional leaders are girding for a huge fight over the reentry of millions of Americans to the workplace, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) insisting that employers be shielded from liability if their workers contract the coronavirus. He appears to have the backing of top White House officials. Democratic leaders have declared they will oppose such blanket protections, putting Washington’s power brokers on opposite sides of a major issue that could have sweeping implications for health care and the economy in the coming months. The battle has unleashed a frenzy of lobbying, with major industry groups, technology firms, insurers, manufacturers, labor unions, and plaintiffs lawyers all squaring off. And Democratic leaders want to focus their next legislative effort at pumping more money into the economy, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pointing to $1 trillion in needs for cities and states. But for McConnell, one of the biggest concerns appears to be the threat of lawsuits against businesses. He has described the potential for a “second pandemic” of litigation, and he and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) say discussion of liability protections will be “absolutely essential.” Democratic leaders, however, have not expressed any interest in advancing such protections at a time when workers are risking their health by laboring at manufacturing jobs, grocery stores, hospitals and other businesses that have stayed open throughout the crisis. “Providing some kind of blanket immunity shield is an idea that’s the result of the majority leader’s imaginary boogeyman of a flood of lawsuits, a parade of horribles that is a political ploy,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said Friday. He said the proposal would be “a non-starter.” In addition to the GOP demand for corporate liability protection, Democrats have demanded more assistance for cities and states, which McConnell says he won’t agree to without liability protections included. Hardy pointed to the example of meat packing facilities where workers have been required to stay on the job, in some cases, they say, without appropriate protective gear or in unsafe conditions. Some have fallen ill as a result. “We can’t be taking these rights away from all of these employees who are doing their best, these essential workers who are doing their best to help us,” Hardy said. The National Association of Manufacturers, for example, is asking Congress to limit lawsuits to instances where a manufacturer had actual knowledge that workers could be exposed to the coronavirus and consciously disregarded that information or acted with reckless indifference. The group is also seeking protections to ensure employers can collect and exchange critical information about employees’ health status, and asking for liability shields for manufacturers that are producing protective gear like respirators or masks.

Katie Porter in heated exchange with Mnuchin: ‘You’re play-acting to be a lawyer’ —Democratic Rep. Katie Porter (Calif.) on Wednesday got into a heated conversation with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin during a House Financial Services Committee hearing, with Porter claiming that Mnuchin was “play-acting to be a lawyer.” Porter specifically grilled Mnuchin over his support to move $455 billion in COVID-19 relief from the Federal Reserve back into the Treasury’s general fund, making it harder for his successor to access the emergency funding. Porter noted that under the CARES Act, any remaining funds may be moved to the Treasury only “on or after Jan. 1, 2026.” “Secretary Mnuchin, is it currently the year 2026? Yes or no?” the congresswoman asked via video conference at the hearing. Mnuchin responded, “First, let me comment. I do believe there’s an economic – ” “Secretary Mnuchin, reclaiming my time,” Porter interrupted. “You’re putting words in my mouth that are not correct,” the Treasury secretary said. Porter then repeated her question, to which Mnuchin replied, “Of course it’s not 2026.” “How ridiculous to ask me that question to waste our time,” he added. “Well, Secretary Mnuchin, I think it’s ridiculous that you’re play-acting to be a lawyer when you have no legal degree,” Porter added. Mnuchin then explained that he has several lawyers advising him at the Department of the Treasury. “I’m more than happy to follow up with Chair [Maxine] Waters [D-Calif.] and explain all the legal provisions,” he added. “Secretary Mnuchin, are you in fact a lawyer?” Porter continued. “I do not have a legal degree. I have lawyers that report to me,” Mnuchin replied. Porter then asked Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who appeared before the committee Wednesday along with Mnuchin, if he was a lawyer. Powell, who previously practiced law and holds a legal degree from Georgetown University, confirmed he was a lawyer. “OK, so Secretary Mnuchin, you are trying to tell Chairman Powell to send over any remaining funds right now, and you’re claiming falsely, in my opinion, that that is what the law says,” Porter argued. Mnuchin then asked if Porter was a lawyer. Porter holds a degree from Harvard Law School and serves as a law professor at the University of California, Irvine.

Coronavirus Stimulus Talks Moving in Right Direction, Party Leaders Say – WSJ – Lawmakers dove into negotiations Thursday over the two thorniest components of a new coronavirus aid package as momentum grew for a roughly $900 billion compromise proposal designed to break the congressional stalemate in time for the Christmas holiday.Earlier this week, a bipartisan group from the House and Senate had reached broad consensus around a new $908 billion aid package that included funding for state and local governments and legal protections for businesses and other entities operating during the pandemic. Lawmakers wrestled Thursday over the details of those parts of the proposal, which also includes money for unemployment insurance, small businesses and vaccine distribution, among other measures.”The number is not the problem,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.). “It’s policy differences.”Mr. Graham, a new voice in support of the bipartisan proposal, said he had spoken about the package with President Trump. “The president’s of the mindset a bill would be good for the country, he would like to see it happen, but it’s got to have the right policy,” he said. Both Mr. Trump and President-elect Joe Biden have urged Congress to reach a deal. “I think we are getting very close,” Mr. Trump said Thursday. “I want it to happen. And I believe we are getting very close to a deal.”Congressional leaders said Thursday that a coronavirus aid compromise was within reach, but that lawmakers would have to resolve the sticking points that have stymied them for months. Expectations built this week after Democratic leaders, who had backed a $2.4 trillion bill passed by the House, said Wednesday the new bipartisan proposal should serve as the basis of negotiations, signaling a willingness to embrace a smaller bill. “That is at least movement in the right direction,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said Thursday on the Senate floor. “The underlying reality is still with us: there are many important policies that have strong bipartisan support; there are many others that do not.”

Coronavirus stimulus update: Pelosi hopeful about relief deal after jobs report – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said “there is momentum” toward a coronavirus stimulus deal after new data Friday showed sluggish jobs growth in the face of an infection surge. Nonfarm payrolls grew by 245,000 in November, falling significantly below expectations of 440,000. The sign of a flagging economic recovery comes amid a renewed congressional effort to pass a pandemic relief bill before the end of the year. Pelosi spoke to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday for the first time in at least a month. The conversation boosted hopes about an agreement on Capitol Hill to lift an economy and health-care system damaged by the coronavirus. The California Democrat said she and the Kentucky Republican agreed they want to attach aid measures to a must-pass government funding bill – if they can resolve outstanding issues with that legislation. Lawmakers need to approve a spending plan by Dec. 11 to prevent a government shutdown. “The tone of our conversations is one that is indicative of the decision to get the job done,” Pelosi told reporters at the Capitol. Democratic leaders, who have for months called for a sweeping package to boost the U.S. economy and health-care system, cited the jobs report as new justification for Congress to act. Pelosi described the data as “further indicative of the need for us to crush the virus so the economy can get going.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks to reporters during her weekly news conference at the U.S.Capitol in Washington, U.S., December 4, 2020. Tom Brenner | Reuters Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement that “this latest jobs report shows the need for strong, urgent emergency relief is more important than ever.” “Senate Republicans are increasingly understanding this urgency, and Leader McConnell should hear their pleas as well as those of the millions of struggling American families,” he said. “This jobs report is blaring warning that a double-dip recession is looming and must be a wakeup call for anyone who is standing in the way of true bipartisan emergency relief,” he continued. After his conversation with Pelosi on Thursday, McConnell told reporters the leaders are “both interested in getting an outcome, both on the omnibus and on a coronavirus package.” Democrats, who hold the House and can block legislation in the Senate, have backed a $908 billion bipartisan relief framework unveiled by members of both chambers as a basis for talks with McConnell. The leader of the GOP-controlled Senate wants to pass a more narrow $500 billion aid plan. President-elect Joe Biden echoed the Democratic congressional leaders Friday after what he called a “grim” jobs report. The former vice president, who will spearhead the federal response to the pandemic when he takes office in January, said he was “encouraged” by the renewed push to pass a stimulus deal.

Bernie Sanders opposes emerging coronavirus aid deal, Ocasio-Cortez is open to it – Sen. Bernie Sanders said Friday he opposes theemerging bipartisan deal on coronavirus relief, objecting to giving “legal immunity to corporations” and the exclusion of a new round of $1,200 direct payments. “Given the enormous economic desperation facing working families in this country today, I will not be able to support the recently announced Manchin-Romney COVID proposal unless it is significantly improved,” Sanders said in a statement, referring to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va, and Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, two key figures in crafting the package. While many lawmakers in both parties have expressed optimism and support for the emerging deal, Sanders’ statement indicates progressive resistance. Any successful legislation will need Republicans and Democrats. Movement toward a deal began after a bipartisan group of lawmakers released a $908 billion plan early this week aimed at breaking the logjam that has stalled progress for months. Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have prioritized enacting liability protections to shield companies operating in the pandemic from lawsuits. “In my view, we have got to make sure that every working class American receives at least $1,200 in direct payments and that we do not provide a liability shield to corporations who break the law,” Sanders said in a statement provided by his office. Hours earlier, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., expressed some similar concerns in an interview with NBC News but remained open to voting for a package. “Something is better than nothing but what I have real concerns about is the American people thinking ‘Congress struck a deal, we’re getting COVID relief,’ and then their lives changing very little,” she said, adding that she is “extremely concerned that it’s not going to solve the immediate problems that people have.” “If you’re on the brink of an eviction or if you’re behind on six months of bills, you need that check, you need the check, and state and local funding isn’t going to help you,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And so the millions of people who are most desperately impacted need a check.”

Scott Atlas resigns as coronavirus adviser to Trump – Scott Atlas turned in his resignation on Monday from his role as a special adviser to President Trump on the coronavirus, capping off a controversial tenure in which he gained considerable influence while pushing questionable approaches to combating the pandemic. Atlas joined the administration in August as a special government employee, meaning he was eligible to serve a 130-day detail. His tenure was slated to expire this week, but he filed his resignation, effective Tuesday, a White House official confirmed on Monday evening. The exit was first reported by Fox News. Atlas, who joined the administration after Trump noticed him during Fox News appearances, attracted controversy for his influence over the president’s thinking on the pandemic. He is not an infectious diseases expert, and he pushed the widely disputed herd immunity theory in which some argue that older, at-risk populations should be protected while younger, healthier people would be free of restrictions. Several other members of the White House coronavirus task force raised concerns about Atlas or openly disputed his views. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield was overheard ripping Atlas on a flight; White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx confronted Vice President Pence about Atlas’s increasing influence; and Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious diseases expert, said earlier this month he “totally”disagreed with Atlas’s views. Atlas’s colleagues at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University alsodistanced themselves from the White House adviser earlier this month. Trump has all but moved on from the pandemic response since losing the election to President-elect Joe Biden earlier this month. He has spoken periodically about progress on vaccine development, but has otherwise paid little public attention to rising infection rates, surging hospitalizations and mounting deaths from the virus. Millions of Americans contracted the coronavirus in November alone.

America’s failures have led to a new daily record in Covid-19 deaths -On December 2, a staggering 2,885 Americans were reported to have died ofCovid-19, according to the New York Times. It was the highest single-day toll of the year.It was nearly the same number of people who died in the 9/11 attacks (2,977). And it was far more than the estimated 1,800 Americans who died over a matter of days when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005. During World War II, from the Pearl Harbor attacks in December 1941 to Japan’s surrender, about 300 US soldiers died every day on average (and about 407,000 were dead in total by August 1945).Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic has more in common with a slow-motion tragedy, like a war, than an acute event like 9/11. More than 2,600 deaths were reported on December 1, the day before the US set its new record for daily deaths; the previous high had been 2,752 on April 15. With the number of daily new cases and hospitalizations still rising across the country, public health experts expect new terrible death records will be set over the coming winter.Coronavirus pandemic metrics are slippery things, however. America was so bad at testing during the first few months of the virus’s spread that there were likely quite a few cases and deaths that were caused by Covid-19 but were not counted as such. Even today, the US positive test rate is so high that experts say the statistics aren’t coming close to capturing every case or death.According to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, the official number of total deaths attributed to Covid-19 in the US is 274,121. But total excess deaths – the number of deaths above what would be expected in a normal year – has reached 345,000, according to the Times. Most, though not all, of those deaths are likely uncounted Covid-19 fatalities. At a certain point, this is all academic. What’s undeniable is that America is entering a period of mass death unlike anything we’ve seen so far in the pandemic. Cases and hospitalizations have been rising steadily, and deaths always follow. Improvements in treatment have lowered the fatality rate, but a higher number of hospitalized patients will inevitably mean more deaths. And it is older, low-income, and minority Americans who are dying at disproportionate rates from the coronavirus.

Donald Trump stays silent as US sees record 2,804 coronavirus deaths in a day – A day after 2,804 Americans died in a single day from the coronavirus pandemic – almost as many as in the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks – Donald Trump said nothing about the harrowing national crisis. The US president’s silence broke from the tradition of predecessors who have sought to play the role of “consoler-in-chief” to the American public after deadly bombings, school shootings and other tragedies. Trump instead remains consumed with false allegations that last month’s presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden, was rigged against him. On Wednesday, when the pandemic death toll hit its record, he released a 46-minute videotaped speech that spread lies and disinformation about voter fraud.On Thursday, as the country grappled with the traumatic loss of life, Trump was preoccupied with presenting an award to an American football coach. In a subsequent exchange with reporters he did not directly address the unfolding national tragedy, while on Twitter he continued to push baseless conspiracy theories. Covid-19 cases in the US have doubled within 10 weeks to a total of 14m. Wednesday saw a record of more than 100,000 people in hospital. The day’s death toll of 2,804, recorded by Johns Hopkins University, was the worst since the start of the pandemic. The total stands at more than 275,000. The US has 4% of the world’s population and 19% of its deaths from Covid-19. “This is hardly what people mean by American exceptionalism,” Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s influential Meet the Press programme, observed on Sunday. Even as Trump pursues his doomed legal campaign to overturn the election result, experts warn that the holiday season could mark the most dangerous public health crisis in the history of the country, straining ambulance servicesand hospitals to breaking point. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,warned on Wednesday: “The reality is, December and January and February are going to be tough times. I actually believe they’re going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.” He added that the total number of deaths could approach 450,000 by February if Americans fail to follow public health guidelines to mitigate the spread of the virus. Jonathan Reiner, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at George Washington University, told CNN: “By this time next week, we are going to be talking about 3,000 deaths a day – that’s 9/11 every single day.” After 9/11, George W Bush sought to rally the nation from the Oval Office and Ground Zero in New York. Bill Clinton offered comfort after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and Barack Obama sang Amazing Grace in Charleston, South Carolina, as it tried to heal after nine African Americans were shot dead at church in 2015. But Trump spent the election promising his campaign rallies – with few face masks and little physical distancing – that America was “rounding the turn” on the pandemic and the media would pay it no attention once the votes were in.

‘We’re No. 28! And Dropping!’ – The newest Social Progress Index, shared with me before its official release Thursday morning, finds that out of 163 countries assessed worldwide, the United States, Brazil and Hungary are the only ones in which people are worse off than when the index began in 2011. And the declines in Brazil and Hungary were smaller than America’s. The index, inspired by research of Nobel-winning economists, collects 50 metrics of well-being – nutrition, safety, freedom, the environment, health, education and more – to measure quality of life. Norway comes out on top in the 2020 edition, followed by Denmark, Finland and New Zealand. South Sudan is at the bottom, with Chad, Central African Republic and Eritrea just behind. The United States, despite its immense wealth, military power and cultural influence, ranks 28th – having slipped from 19th in 2011. The index now puts the United States behind significantly poorer countries, including Estonia, Czech Republic, Cyprus and Greece. “We are no longer the country we like to think we are,” said Porter. The United States ranks No. 1 in the world in quality of universities, but No. 91 in access to quality basic education. The U.S. leads the world in medical technology, yet we are No. 97 in access to quality health care. The Social Progress Index finds that Americans have health statistics similar to those of people in Chile, Jordan and Albania, while kids in the United States get an education roughly on par with what children get in Uzbekistan and Mongolia. A majority of countries have lower homicide rates, and most other advanced countries have lower traffic fatality rates and better sanitation and internet access. The decline of the United States over the last decade in this index – more than any country in the world – is a reminder that we Americans face structural problems that predate President Trump and that festered under leaders of both parties. Trump is a symptom of this larger malaise, and also a cause of its acceleration. David G. Blanchflower, a Dartmouth economist, has new research showing that the share of Americans reporting in effect that every day is a bad mental health day has doubled over 25 years. “Rising distress and despair are largely American phenomenon not observed in other advanced countries,” Blanchflower told me.

Release of PPP loan recipients’ data reveals troubling patterns–Sweeping data released by the Small Business Administration on who benefited from pandemic relief programs raises questions about the equitability and distribution of loans intended for small businesses, an initial analysis by NBC News shows. The analysis found that tenants paying rent at properties owned by the Trump Organization as well as the Kushner Companies, owned by the family of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, benefited financially from the program. These tenants received loans, which they then were required to put toward rent for the loans to be forgiven. The data did not show that the Trump Organization received PPP loans for its properties. After months of litigation, the SBA released the dataset Tuesday night on every small business that received a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) or Economic Injury Disaster (EIDL) loan. The data reveals the most complete accounting to date of the more than $700 billion in forgivable loans Congress and the Trump administration introduced in the spring for allowable expenses, including payroll, rent, utilities and mortgage interest payments. The analysis by NBC News, one of 11 newsrooms that sued for the release of data, also shows:

• Over 25 PPP loans worth more than $3.65 million were given to businesses with addresses at Trump and Kushner real estate properties, paying rent to those owners. Fifteen of the businesses self-reported that they only kept one job, zero jobs or did not report a number at all.
• The loans to businesses located at Trump and Kushner properties included a $2,164,543 loan to the Triomphe Restaurant Corp., at the Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York City. The company reported the money didn’t go to keeping any jobs. It later closed.
• A company called LB City Inc, which is located at Kushner’s Bungalow Hotel in Long Branch, New Jersey, received a loan for $505,552.50 that it used to keep 155 jobs.
• Two tenants at 725 5th Avenue, Trump Tower, received more than $100,000 and kept only three jobs.
• Four tenants at the Kushner-owned 666 5th Avenue combined received more than $204,000, and retained only six jobs.

Christopher W Smith, General Counsel with Kushner Companies, denied that the company had benefited improperly in any way from the program. “The notion that Kushner Companies somehow improperly benefited from CARES Act Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans is completely untrue and amounts to nothing more than politically motivated nonsense.” Kimberly Benza, a spokeswoman with the Trump Organization, wrote in an email, “The Trump Organization was specifically excluded from receiving PPP money, per Senate legislation. In other words, no Trump entity received pandemic-related loans from the government.”

Banks, borrowers bristle at SBA questionnaire on large PPP loans – Lenders and borrowers are objecting to a questionnaire many fear might lead to the Small Business Administration denying forgiveness for untold numbers of Paycheck Protection Program loans. The SBA issued guidance last week requiring lenders to send a nine-page questionnaire to small businesses that borrowed $2 million or more under the PPP. Lenders are also responsible for routing the completed surveys to the agency. Once a notification letter is received, lenders have five business days to upload the “standard loan review documentation” and notify borrowers. The SBA is giving borrowers 10 business days to complete the questionnaire and return it to their lenders. “Failure to timely respond to any SBA request may result in a delay in SBA’s remittance of the loan forgiveness amount … or in a determination that the borrower was ineligible for the loan or ineligible to receive the loan amount or loan forgiveness amount claimed,” the SBA said in a letter to lenders. Such a process will challenge borrowers and lenders that are already grappling with a resurgence of the coronavirus, industry observers said. And there is concern the SBA could use borrower responses to deny forgiveness requests, leaving lenders holding onto big loans with short maturity periods. “This becomes a staffing and logistical nightmare for all banks,” said Julio Gonzalez, CEO at Engineered Tax Services in West Palm Beach, Fla., adding that lenders should be contacting their clients to help them prepare for the questionnaire. The SBA has not released a timetable for its loan-review program. The agency did not respond to requests for comment on the questionnaire. There are concerns that certain aspects of the questionnaire could increase the risk of forgiveness being denied. The biggest worry centers on timing. The survey asks borrowers to compare their second-quarter results with those from a year earlier, using data derived after most small businesses received their PPP loans. The stimulus package that led to the PPP’s April launch required borrowers to make a good-faith certification that a loan was necessary based on the situation when they applied. There could be instances where a business, worried about its viability, requested and received a PPP loan, only to have better-than-expected financial performance after receiving the funds, industry observers said.

Extension of Fed facility could spur more PPP loan sales – The Federal Reserve’s decision to extend the life of its Paycheck Protection Program Loan Facility through March should give lenders mulling the sale of PPP portfolios more time to weigh options and – potentially – strike deals. Several banks have already sold originations under the $659 billion emergency loan program for small businesses, either to free up resources or to avoid having to navigate the complicated forgiveness process. It also expedites the influx of fee income. Nonbank Small Business Administration lenders such as The Loan Source and Fountainhead Capital have been aggressively buying those loans. Those lenders have relied on the PPPLF, which had been set to expire on Dec. 31, to provide the liquidity needed to support those efforts. Extending the life of the facility could spur more sales, industry observers said. “I know some banks are thinking about it,” said Richard Wayne, CEO at the $1.3 billion-asset Northeast Bank in Portland, Maine, which is serving as the correspondent lender to The Loan Source. “I think the fairest way to characterize [the Fed’s move] is that it’s a positive.” The facility was largely used by banks to provide added liquidity to support PPP loans, though that purpose has been on hold since the program expired on Aug. 8. For buyers like The Loan Source, the facility is a key component of financial modeling. While small businesses pay just 1% interest, lenders can finance deals with 0.35% PPPLF borrowings, providing enough leeway to eke out a profit. Volume amplifies the profit, helping explain the company’s big push to buy banks’ portfolios. The Loan Source, which has acquired about 30,000 loans totaling $4 billion, is “absolutely” on the hunt for more deals, said Luke LaHaie, chief investment officer at ACAP SME, which provides SBA-approved services to the New York lender. “The conversations really haven’t fallen off,” LaHaie said. “I kind of thought as it got later and later in the year they might, just because people would be forced to really start forgiveness. … But a lot of banks started and were like, ‘Wow, this turned out to be a lot different,’ so they call us up.”

Large credit unions deepen their stake in PPP lending – Paycheck Protection Program loans made up a significant portion of the loan portfolios at four of the top credit union lenders in this area during the third quarter. These loans made up at least 15% of the portfolios at Self-Help Federal Credit Union in Durham, N.C., Notre Dame Federal Credit Union in Indiana, Vibrant Credit Union in Moline, Ill., and Greater Nevada Credit Union in Carson City, according to a new analysis by S&P Global Market Intelligence. PPP credits constituted the largest percentage of loans at the $862 million-asset Notre Dame at 24.1% followed by the $918 million-asset Vibrant at 20.2%, according to the analysis. The data looked at outstanding PPP loans for the top PPP credit union lenders in the third quarter. At the $1.5 billion-asset Self-Help, PPP loans totaled 15.5% of its overall portfolio. PPP loans were 17.2% of the loan portfolio at the $1.3 billion-asset Greater Nevada, but these credits had declined by about 18% in the third quarter from the previous one. Earlier this year, the credit union sold a significant portion of its PPP loans. It had $149 million left on its books in the third quarter, according to the S&P data. Navy Federal Credit Union in Vienna, Va., reported the largest jump in PPP loans from the second to the third quarter at 14.1%. The $131.6 billion-asset institution had $163.6 million of these loans, making up just 0.2% of its portfolio. The $4.1 billion-asset Northwest Federal Credit Union in Herndon, Va., had the second-biggest increase at 11.6% and had a total $110.7 million in PPP loans, according to the S&P data. Mountain America Federal Credit Union in Sandy, Utah, had the largest amount of PPP loans at $349.2 million, according to the analysis.

Fed asking why banks aren’t lending more – A top Federal Reserve official expressed some disappointment Wednesday about the extent to which banks have dipped into their capital and liquidity buffers to help bolster the fragile U.S. economy. Fed Vice Chairman for Supervision Randal Quarles said while “banks really have done a very good job” responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, he would have liked to see them take more advantage of capital cushions built after the 2008 financial crisis to lend during a time of stress. “All of those cushions on top of the minimums are designed to be cushions, to be used during a period like this, and for the most part, banks haven’t done that,” he said during a virtual event held by the Financial Times. Though Quarles noted he “would have liked to see” more lending activity, he suggested that the lack of more aggressive action by financial institutions may be the result of regulatory incentives established by the Fed rather than decisions by the institutions themselves. “I think that’s more of a systemic problem than a banking problem,” he said. The Fed, along with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, issued a joint statement in March encouraging financial institutions to use their capital and liquidity reserves to help those reeling from the pandemic, noting that the buffers were designed for banks to support the economy during a downturn. “One issue that we’ve talked about globally, not just in the United States, is that in a situation like this, it would be good to see the banks using the buffers of both capital and liquidity that have been baked into the regulatory system to be used at a time like this,” Quarles said. But he added that it “may be as much our issue as their issue.” “We’re in the process of looking internally within the regulatory system to say, what disincentives have we created in the regulatory system to the use of those buffers that perhaps we can adjust so that the buffers become more usable in a time of stress like this?” he said. Still, Quarles praised banks for setting aside loan-loss reserves and extending credit as markets seized up in March and April.

Banks’ net interest margins plunged to record lows in 3Q – Even though earnings recovered last quarter as banks eased up on loss provisions, a sharp decline in asset yields could bode trouble ahead amid continuing economic uncertainty. That was a key takeaway from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s report on the banking sector’s health in the third quarter. While net income rose 173% from the prior quarter thanks mostly to a nearly 77% decline in loss provisions, a persistent drag on interest rates led to the lowest average net interest margin on record. “The low interest rate environment, flat yield curve and continued economic uncertainties related to the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic will likely continue to exert downward pressure on revenue and challenge the banking industry over the near to medium term,” FDIC Chair Jelena McWilliams said at the release of the Quarterly Banking Profile. “Nonetheless, the banking industry remains well capitalized with ample liquidity and has, to date, weathered the economic effects of the pandemic.” The nation’s banks benefited from calmer economic seas in the third quarter of 2020. Banks posted near-normal quarterly net income of $51.2 billion in the three months ending Sept. 30. That was a notable jump from the second quarter, when surging loan-loss provisions at the outset of the pandemic led to a sharp profit drain. However, third-quarter profits remained depressed compared with a year earlier, declining by 10.7%, or $6.2 billion, from the third quarter of 2019. The report flagged a hit to net interest income resulting in part from vanishing interest rates. Quarterly net interest income fell 7.2% from a year earlier to $128.7 billion, the largest percentage decrease on record. The average net interest margin continued its descent from the previous quarter, falling to a record low of 2.68%, down 68 basis points from a year earlier. It was the largest year-over-year decline ever. “The decline in NIM was caused by a decline in asset yields (down 139 basis points) that exceeded the decline in funding costs (down 72 basis points),” the report said. About half of all banks reported lower net interest income from a year earlier. Low interest rates could remain a challenge to banks’ profitability as the Federal Reserve has shown no sign of budging from low-rate policies while confronting continued economic uncertainty from the pandemic. FDIC officials said downward pressure on interest margins could persist for some time. “In this very low and flat interest rate environment, assets have been repricing more quickly than liabilities,” Diane Ellis, director of insurance and research at the FDIC, said on a call with reporters. “That’s one of the strong headwinds on earnings at this point,” Ellis added.

Small businesses poised to hunker down in 2021- Bank of America survey – Small-business owners remain cautious about their growth prospects in 2021. A survey of 1,048 individuals, conducted by Bank of America between July 29 and Sept. 3, found that more than a third of respondents expect the national economy to improve next year and nearly 40% have the same view of their local economy. But many of the respondents have a tempered view of their own operations. About two-thirds expect revenue to be flat or down next year, and only 13% plan to be in hiring mode. Bank of America, which has been conducting the survey since 2012, said the revenue and hiring projections represent lows not seen in more than eight years. Still, the survey found some cause for hope. About 60% of participants said they expect the pandemic’s economic dislocation to last fewer than two years, and 15% said their businesses had been unaffected. A third of the small-business owners said they received loans under the Paycheck Protection Program, while two-thirds said debt forgiveness would speed recovery. Those responses were “encouraging,” Sharon Miller, Bank of America’s head of small business, said in an interview. “Entrepreneurs in general are resilient. They’ve got a very positive spirit. I think even though things are tough right now, as they look forward, they see clearer path to growth.” The Small Business Administration, which is administering the PPP along with the Treasury Department, has offered streamlined forgiveness to borrowers with loans of $50,000 or less. Groups representing lenders and borrowers continue to push for a higher threshold. Most are seeking blanket forgiveness for loans up to $150,000. While Miller stopped short of advocating a higher threshold, she said forgiveness would play a key role in the recovery. “For anyone that has gone through the PPP process, part of it is getting forgiveness,” she said. “As far as speculating on what the requirements might be, we’re going to follow them whatever they are, but forgiveness is important.” Bank of America was the leading PPP lender by number of loans, approving more than 343,000 for $25.6 billion.

BankThink Lend to those with low credit scores to lift downtrodden neighborhoods – America stands at the door of historic change, and banks will have a key role in this change. Faced with the triple threat of a global health pandemic, an economic crisis and a 400-year-old social justice reckoning for Black Americans, the nation will undergo a reset into 2021. To get it right, there needs to be opportunity for all. In order for this to happen, we need more than a stable government setting standards and strategies that stimulate growth. We also need changes to the American banking system. No developed country has evolved without the banking sector tied at the hip of smart growth and smart bets. This time around the U.S. will need the banking system to broaden its historic outreach. This means going beyond the traditional choices of the well-known actors, as every big company was once a small one. Because even giants like Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase were once pioneered by founders who centered their businesses on funding entrepreneurial dreamers, then entered the field of competition. This highly regulated sector will need help to reimagine itself to broaden its opportunity in today’s climate, while remaining respectful of its limitations. Here’s just one proposal. America has seen several high-profile shootings and deaths involving Black Americans by police. On May 25, George Floyd, who lived in a low-credit score community, was killed by police. These devastating incidents involving Black Americans are more likely to occur in low-income, sub-700 credit score neighborhoods. The fear displayed by easily alarmed police officers and others outside these neighborhoods, including bankers, cannot continue if we truly want a strong economy that confronts, not scurries, from hardship. Addressing this gap means deploying empowered bankers who already have the ability to offer smart lending capital in conjunction with a community financial coach, aimed at 500+ credit score communities for new homeowners, small businesses and entrepreneurs to uplift struggling neighborhoods and boost jobs. To quote my friend and CNN contributor, Van Jones, “nothing stops a bullet like a job.” And, typically, 700 credit score communities don’t riot. It is a fact that underserved communities in the 400-500 credit score range, regardless of race, pose a credit lending risk to banks. But it is also true that some of our greatest strivers, dreamers and entrepreneurs in the making came from these same communities. And there are already developments underway, including partnerships between banks and credible nonprofits, to help boost the scores of people who need it the most.

Fannie Mae: Mortgage Serious Delinquency Rate Decreased in October -Fannie Mae reported that the Single-Family Serious Delinquency decreased to 3.05% in October, from 3.20% in September. The serious delinquency rate is up from 0.67% in October 2019. These are mortgage loans that are “three monthly payments or more past due or in foreclosure”. The Fannie Mae serious delinquency rate peaked in February 2010 at 5.59%. By vintage, for loans made in 2004 or earlier (2% of portfolio), 5.82% are seriously delinquent (up from 5.81% in September). For loans made in 2005 through 2008 (3% of portfolio), 9.84% are seriously delinquent (unchanged from 9.84%), For recent loans, originated in 2009 through 2018 (95% of portfolio), 2.57% are seriously delinquent (down from 2.74%). So Fannie is still working through a few poor performing loans from the bubble years. Mortgages in forbearance are counted as delinquent in this monthly report, but they will not be reported to the credit bureaus. This is very different from the increase in delinquencies following the housing bubble. Lending standards have been fairly solid over the last decade, and most of these homeowners have equity in their homes – and they will be able to restructure their loans once they are employed. Note: Freddie Mac reported earlier.

MBA Survey: “Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Increases to 5.54%” – Note: This is as of November 22nd. From the MBA: Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Increases to 5.54% The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) latest Forbearance and Call Volume Survey revealed that the total number of loans now in forbearance increased from 5.48% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior week to 5.54% as of November 22, 2020. According to MBA’s estimate, 2.8 million homeowners are in forbearance plans. .. “For the second week in a row, the share of loans in forbearance has increased, driven by a rise in new forbearance requests and another slowdown in the pace of forbearance exits. The increase was across all loan and servicer types. Even GSE loans, which had previously declined for 24 straight weeks, saw an increase last week,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s Senior Vice President and Chief Economist. “Additionally concerning, there was an increase in forbearance re-entries, as borrowers who had previously exited sought relief again. The increase in new forbearance requests may be the result of additional outreach to homeowners who had previously not taken advantage of forbearance opportunities. However, the slowing rate of exits to a new survey low further highlights that borrowers still in forbearance are increasingly challenged by the renewed restrictions on economic activity to contain the surge in COVID-19 cases.” Added Fratantoni, “Recent housing market data remain quite strong and we expect that the market is well positioned for additional growth next year, but these data show that additional support is likely needed to get through this winter.” .. By stage, 20.34% of total loans in forbearance are in the initial forbearance plan stage, while 77.42% are in a forbearance extension. The remaining 2.24% are forbearance re-entries. This graph shows the percent of portfolio in forbearance by investor type over time. Most of the increase was in late March and early April, and has been trending down for the last few months. The MBA notes: “Weekly forbearance requests as a percent of servicing portfolio volume (#) increased to 0.11 percent from 0.09 percent the previous week.”

Over Half Young American Adults Now Live With Their Parents – In the last few decades, young adults have faced harsh economic realities – from the financial crisis in 2008 to this year’s global pandemic, both triggering catastrophic losses in jobs and financial stability. And while the widespread effects of COVID-19 have yet to be fully captured, Visual Capitalist’s Aran Ali notes that young adults are already now living with their parents to a greater degree than witnessed in 120 years – surpassing even the Depression-era generation. Young adults today are categorized as either late Millennials and Gen-Zers. For them, COVID-19 has just been another addition to the list of financial hardships they’ve been up against, such as a precarious job market and the rising cost of living. There are a few possible factors that could explain the increase in young adults living with their parents.

• 1. The lackluster job market. The barista or server with multiple degrees has become a common portrayal of the struggling millennial. Despite the less than rosy outcomes, it has not been for want of trying. Younger people today are actually the most educated generation in history. Unfortunately, a degree does not map out a path to success the way it did for prior generations.
• 2. Tying the knot later. Today, people get married nearly a decade later than prior historical averages, and many young adults are opting to stay with their parents until they tie the knot. It’s also worth noting that as time goes on, young adults are getting married at lower rates than in the past.

NAR: Pending Home Sales Decrease 1.1% in October – From the NAR: Pending Home Sales Dip 1.1% in October: Pending home sales fell slightly in October, according to the National Association of Realtors. Contract activity was mixed among the four major U.S. regions, with the only positive month-over-month growth happening in the South, although each region achieved year-over-year gains in pending home sales transactions. The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), a forward-looking indicator of home sales based on contract signings, fell 1.1% to 128.9 in October, the second straight month of decline. Year-over-year, contract signings rose 20.2%. An index of 100 is equal to the level of contract activity in 2001. … The Northeast PHSI slid 5.9% to 112.3 in October, a 18.5% increase from a year ago. In the Midwest, the index fell 0.7% to 119.6 last month, up 19.6% from October 2019. Pending home sales in the South increased 0.1% to an index of 151.1 in October, up 21.0% from October 2019. The index in the West remained the same in October, at 116.8, which is up 20.8% from a year ago. This was below expectations for this index. Note: Contract signings usually lead sales by about 45 to 60 days, so this would usually be for closed sales in November and December.

Construction Spending Increased 1.3% in October – From the Census Bureau reported that overall construction spending decreased in June: Construction spending during October 2020 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,438.5 billion, 1.3 percent above the revised September estimate of $1,420.4 billion. The October figure is 3.7 percent above the October 2019 estimate of $1,386.8 billion.Both private and public spending increased:Spending on private construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,093.7 billion, 1.4 percent above the revised September estimate of $1,078.9 billion. … In October, the estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of public construction spending was $344.8 billion, 1.0 percent above the revised September estimate of $341.4 billion.This graph shows private residential and nonresidential construction spending, and public spending, since 1993. Note: nominal dollars, not inflation adjusted.Residential spending is 6% below the previous peak.Non-residential spending is 10% above the previous peak in January 2008 (nominal dollars), but has been weak recently.Public construction spending is 6% above the previous peak in March 2009, and 32% above the austerity low in February 2014.The second graph shows the year-over-year change in construction spending.On a year-over-year basis, private residential construction spending is up 14.5%. Non-residential spending is down 8.2% year-over-year. Public spending is up 3.7% year-over-year.Construction was considered an essential service in most areas and did not decline sharply like many other sectors, but it seems likely that non-residential, and public spending (depending on disaster relief), will be under pressure. For example, lodging is down 23% YoY, multi-retail down 19% YoY, and office down 8% YoY. This was above consensus expectations of a 0.4% increase in spending, and construction spending for the previous two months was revised up (mostly private residential).

Hotels: Occupancy Rate Declined 28.5% Year-over-year – From HotelNewsNow.com: STR: US hotel results for week ending 28 November: U.S. weekly hotel occupancy fell to its lowest level since late May, according to the latest data from STR through 28 November. 22-28 November 2020 (percentage change from comparable week in 2019):

Occupancy: 36.2% (-28.5%)

Average daily rate (ADR): US$92.49 (-17.8%)

Revenue per available room (RevPAR): US$33.49 (-41.2%)

TSA checkpoint counts increased sharply with more than 6 million passengers during both the week before and of Thanksgiving. However, that increased air travel volume did not translate to more hotel rooms sold as weekly demand (13.2 million) and occupancy fell to their lowest levels since late May. This would indicate that a bulk of travelers opted to stay with family during the holiday. Since there is a seasonal pattern to the occupancy rate – see graph below – we can track the year-over-year change in occupancy to look for any improvement. This table shows the year-over-y ear change since the week ending Sept 19, 2020: This suggests little improvement over the last 11 weeks.The following graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four week average. The red line is for 2020, dash light blue is 2019, blue is the median, and black is for 2009 (the worst year since the Great Depression for hotels – before 2020). Seasonally we’d expect the occupancy rate to decline into the new year. Note: Y-axis doesn’t start at zero to better show the seasonal change.

NYC Landlords Suing Pandemic-Slammed Small Businesses by the Hundreds for Missed Rent — Before the spring, Barbara made a living selling outfits to Manhattan private school students through her uniform store, in business since 1972. Typically, she would order the bulk of her inventory in January for sale in the spring. But this year her usually busiest months corresponded with the worst of the pandemic: March, April and May. “I had to be closed down,” she said as her voice broke over the phone. “I get emotional.” Now, with many students in remote learning, sales are way down. The inventory Barbara ordered in the winter sits in a space she moved to in November because she couldn’t pay the rent on the company’s previous location on Staten Island’s South Shore. As she contends with a dried-up market, she faces another financial challenge: Her previous landlord recently sued her company for unpaid rent, alleging the business owes more than $25,000, court papers show. When THE CITY alerted her about the lawsuit – the first she had heard of it – she said she simply can’t afford to pay the debt. “I have nothing. I haven’t paid my [home] mortgage in six months. How am I gonna deal with it?” she said. “You know, it just makes a hard life harder. That’s all.” She is not alone. In the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of city business owners – and, sometimes, their commercial landlords who are sued proactively by struggling tenants – face lawsuits over rent owed by proprietors whose income has all but vanished. In New York, the already backlogged civil court system is being further clogged by the suits. Some of the larger ones – with millions of dollars on the line – get headlines, such as with the battles variously pitting landlords against The Gap, Planet Hollywood in Times Square and the NBA Store on Fifth Avenue. But every day, cases quietly appear on the city docket for rent owed by much smaller fish. In DUMBO, a landlord alleged that a Mexican restaurant that has been in the neighborhood for 20 years owes $163,000 in back rent. In Midtown, a salon for eyelash extensions on West 43rd Street is behind $24,000, its landlord claimed. Pedro’s Bar on Jay Street in DUMBO, Nov. 24, 2020. Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY A sushi restaurant at a hotel on Bryant Park owes $180,000, the property owner says. In Clinton Hill, a Middle Eastern cafe is accused of being $25,600 in arrears. “Everyone is dealing with this,” said Janice Mac Avoy, co-head of the real estate litigation division at the law firm Fried Frank. A year ago, Mac Avoy almost never saw this type of suit. “Now, there are hundreds,” she said. “It’s changed dramatically.”

Black Friday Foot Traffic Down More Than 52% — Summary: While online sales exploded during the Thanksgiving weekend, trips inside brick-and-mortar stores on Black Friday dropped off significantly, as many analysts anticipated.According to data from Sensormatic Solutions, shopper visits to physical stores on Black Friday fell 52.1% from last year. Online sales, meanwhile, hit a new record with $9 billion, up 21.6% over 2019, Adobe Analytics said. With many retailers opting to stay closed on Thanksgiving, physical traffic on the holiday fell nearly 95%, according to Sensormatic. With COVID-19 cases hitting new highs, it comes as little surprise that many shoppers opted to stay away from physical stores this year. That said, the differences between Black Friday 2020 and those that preceded it were stark. “Our traditional store checks over the holiday weekend were like none other we’ve ever experienced in our lifetime – no hustle and bustle, no lines at the register,” said MKM Partners Managing Director Roxanne Meyer in an emailed research note.Retailers have anticipated and prepared for that, even nudged consumers into changing up their holiday shopping plans to keep them from packing into stores. Major players like Walmart and Target have been spreading Black Friday-like discounts through the month of November and encouraging online purchases and curbside pickup. Many also followed Amazon’s lead by launching online sales events in October, which pulled holiday purchases into the month and heralded the beginning of the holiday shopping spree. Black Friday still had a major impact. Sales in the U.S. were up 177% Friday against their October average, according to Criteo data emailed to Retail Dive. By category, fashion was up 240%, consumer electronics were up 359% and home goods were up 148%.

Online Spending Hits Record On Cyber Monday – Earlier this week we wrote about online shopping being the big winner of this year’s Black Friday. Online spending on Black Friday jumped by 21.6% to a record $9 billion, according to data from Adobe Analytics, which analyzed transactions from 80 of the top 100 U.S. online retailers. The total makes this year’s Black Friday the second-largest single day for online shopping in U.S. history behind last year’s Cyber Monday, when shoppers spent $9.4 billion. With this year’s Cyber Monday now in the books, it officially broke last year’s $9.4 billion as consumers spent a record $10.8 billion, according to Adobe Analytics. Despite jumping more than 15% from last year and setting a new record, the total fell short of Adobe’s original estimate of $12.7 billion. Adobe recently cut its estimate for online spending this holiday season to $184 billion from its original estimate of $189 billion. The lowered estimate still marks a 30% increase from last year’s total. “Throughout the remainder of the holiday season, we expect to see record sales continue and curbside pickup to gain even more momentum as shoppers avoid crowds and potential shipping delays,” Adobe Digital Insights director Taylor Schreiner said. Similar to their findings on Black Friday, Adobe found that consumers increasingly shopped on their smartphones as 37% of Cyber Monday’s sales came from mobile devices. Adobe also found that 25% of the day’s total sales came in the last few hours as consumers on the west coast spent $2.7 billion from 7 PM to 11 PM. Meanwhile, Amazon said yesterday that the 2020 holiday season is their “biggest yet” as independent businesses tallied $4.8 billion in sales between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, marking a 60% increase from last year. Amazon also disclosed an astonishing 71,000 small- and medium-sized businesses across the world have already surpassed $100,000 in sales so far this holiday season. However, Amazon did not share any specific sales figures for either Black Friday or Cyber Monday for the company as a whole. “To give customers more time to save and more flexibility during an unusual time, Amazon kicked off the holiday season earlier than ever, just after Prime Day, with deep discounts and deals starting in October,” Amazon said. “And through Cyber Monday, 2020 has been the largest holiday shopping season so far in our company’s history thanks to customers around the world.” With record online spending on this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday, retailers will now watch closely to see if consumers can keep it up or are tapped out.

No Exceptions – UPS Places Shipping Limits On Major Retailers Amid Online Sales Boom – An internal memo reviewed by WSJ and confirmed by United Parcel Service workers outlines how the package delivery company imposed shipping restrictions on major retailers on Cyber Monday as the unprecedented pandemic fueled online shopping season stretched delivery networks thin. The memo informs delivery drivers that on Cyber Monday, they were not to pick up any packages from six major retailers, including L.L. Bean Inc., Hot Topic Inc., New Egg Inc., and Macy’s. WSJ sources confirmed the UPS memo was authentic. The memo said: “No exceptions.” The temporarily throttling of package intake comes as many retailers rely entirely on e-commerce as the shift in retail to online has mainly resulted from the virus pandemic reducing foot traffic in brick-in-mortar-stores. The National Retail Federation said online shopping soared 44% over the five days, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Shipping consultants told WSJ that limits were imposed on retailers if they surpassed their allowance for packages. However, UPS had more than eight months to prepare for this year-end surge. Surely they saw it coming that would warrant the delivery giant to expand capacity before the second wave of the pandemic and holiday shopping season. The limits imposed by UPS outlines how the influx in packages may have stressed its shipping network.

November Vehicles Sales decreased to 15.55 Million SAAR –The BEA released their estimate of light vehicle sales for November this morning. The BEA estimates sales of 15.55 million SAAR in November 2020 (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate), down 4.5% from the October sales rate, and down 8.4% from November 2019. This was below the consensus estimate of 16.2 million SAAR. This graph shows light vehicle sales since 2006 from the BEA (blue) and the BEA’s estimate for November (red).The impact of COVID-19 was significant, and April was the worst month. Since April, sales have increased, but are still down 8.4% from last year. The second graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967. Note: dashed line is current estimated sales rate of 15.55 million SAAR. In 2019, there were 15.92 million light vehicle sales through November. In 2020, there have been 13.20 million sales. That puts sales-to-date down 17.1% in 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.

October Trade Deficit at $63.1B, 1.7% More Than September -The U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services is published monthly by the Bureau of Economic Analysis with data going back to 1992. The monthly reports include revisions that go back several months. This report details U.S. exports and imports of goods and services.Here is an excerpt from the latest report:The U.S. monthly international trade deficit increased in October 2020 according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and the U.S. Census Bureau. The deficit increased from $62.1 billion in September (revised) to $63.1 billion in October, as imports increased more than exports. The previously published September deficit was $63.9 billion. The goods deficit increased $0.6 billion in October to $81.4 billion. The services surplus decreased $0.4 billion in October to $18.3 billion.Exports and imports in October reflect both the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the continued recovery from the sharp declines earlier this year. The full economic effects of the pandemic cannot be quantified in the trade statistics because the impacts are generally embedded in source data and cannot be separately identified. The Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis continue to monitor data quality and have determined estimates in this release meet publication standards. For more information, see the frequently asked questions on goods from the Census Bureau and on services from BEA.Today’s headline number of -63.12B was less negative than the Investing.com forecast of -64.80B.Here is a snapshot that gives a better sense of the extreme volatility of this indicator.

Trade Deficit Increased to $63.1 Billion in October — From the Department of Commerce reported: The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis announced today that the goods and services deficit was $63.1 billion in October, up $1.0 billion from $62.1 billion in September, revised. October exports were $182.0 billion, $4.0 billion more than September exports. October imports were $245.1 billion, $5.0 billion more than September imports. Both exports and imports increased in October. Exports are down 13.5% compared to October 2019; imports are down 3.3% compared to October 2019. Both imports and exports decreased sharply due to COVID-19, and have now bounced back (imports more than exports), The second graph shows the U.S. trade deficit, with and without petroleum. The blue line is the total deficit, and the black line is the petroleum deficit, and the red line is the trade deficit ex-petroleum products. Note that the U.S. exported a slight net positive petroleum products in recent months. Oil imports averaged $36.23 per barrel in October, down from $37.59 per barrel in September, and down from $52.02 in October 2019. The trade deficit with China decreased to $30.1 billion in October, from $31.3 billion in October 2019.

ISM Manufacturing index Decreased to 57.5 in November –The ISM manufacturing index indicated expansion in November. The PMI was at 57.5% in November, down from 59.3% in October. The employment index was at 48.4%, down from 53.2% last month, and the new orders index was at 65.1%, down from 67.9%. From ISM: Manufacturing PMI at 57.5%; November 2020 Manufacturing ISM Report On Business:”The November Manufacturing PMI registered 57.5 percent, down 1.8 percentage points from the October reading of 59.3 percent. This figure indicates expansion in the overall economy for the seventh month in a row after a contraction in April, which ended a period of 131 consecutive months of growth. The New Orders Index registered 65.1 percent, down 2.8 percentage points from the October reading of 67.9 percent. The Production Index registered 60.8 percent, a decrease of 2.2 percentage points compared to the October reading of 63 percent. The Backlog of Orders Index registered 56.9 percent, 1.2 percentage points higher compared to the October reading of 55.7 percent. The Employment Index returned to contraction territory at 48.4 percent, 4.8 percentage points down from the October reading of 53.2 percent. The Supplier Deliveries Index registered 61.7 percent, up 1.2 percentage points from the October figure of 60.5 percent. The Inventories Index registered 51.2 percent, 0.7 percentage point lower than the October reading of 51.9 percent. The Prices Index registered 65.4 percent, down 0.1 percentage point compared to the October reading of 65.5 percent. The New Export Orders Index registered 57.8 percent, an increase of 2.1 percentage points compared to the October reading of 55.7 percent. The Imports Index registered 55.1 percent, a 3-percentage point decrease from the October reading of 58.1 percent.”

November data starts out strong with a very positive ISM manufacturing index – The first November data point, the ISM manufacturing index, was reported this morning, and while it declined from last month, it remained very strongly positive. The overall index declined from 59.3 to 57.5, and the more forward-looking new orders index declined from 67.9 to 65.1: Since any reading above 50, however, indicates expansion, these were positive readings. The overall index is at levels equivalent to where it was during the strongest parts of the last decade’s expansion, and this month, like 3 of the last 4 months, the new orders component is equal to its strongest levels of the past 16 years. Manufacturing has been very strong in the last half of this year, and as a short leading indicator, the ISM manufacturing index suggests that strength is going to continue in the first part of next year as well. In general both the short and long leading indicators are very positive for 2021.

Dallas Fed: “Texas Manufacturing Expansion Moderates” in November – From the Dallas Fed: Texas Manufacturing Expansion ModeratesTexas factory activity expanded in November for the sixth consecutive month, though at a markedly slower pace, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey. The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, fell from 25.5 to 7.2, indicating a deceleration in output growth. Other measures of manufacturing activity also point to slower growth this month, as the indexes remained positive but came in below last month’s readings. The new orders index dropped 13 points to 7.2, and the growth rate of orders index fell five points to 9.7. The capacity utilization index dropped from 23.0 to 6.9, and the shipments index fell from 21.9 to 13.7. Perceptions of broader business conditions continued to improve in November, though the indexes retreated from their October levels. The general business activity index remained positive but fell from 19.8 to 12.0. Similarly, the company outlook index fell from 17.8 to 11.0. Uncertainty regarding companies’ outlooks continued to rise, though the index declined from 11.0 to 7.2. Labor market measures indicated stronger growth in employment and work hours. The employment index ticked up three points to 11.7, suggesting a slight pickup in hiring.Twenty-five percent of firms noted net hiring, while 13 percent noted net layoffs. The hours worked index moved up from 3.7 to 9.7. This was the last of the regional Fed surveys for November. Here is a graph comparing the regional Fed surveys and the ISM manufacturing index:

November Regional Fed Manufacturing Overview Five out of the twelve Federal Reserve Regional Districts currently publish monthly data on regional manufacturing: Dallas, Kansas City, New York, Richmond, and Philadelphia. Regional manufacturing surveys are a measure of local economic health and are used as a representative for the larger national manufacturing health. They have been used as a signal for business uncertainty and economic activity as a whole. Manufacturing makes up 12% of the country’s GDP. The other 6 Federal Reserve Districts do not publish manufacturing data. For these, the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book offers a short summary of each districts’ manufacturing health. The Chicago Fed published their Midwest Manufacturing Index from July 1996 through December of 2013. Five out of the twelve Federal Reserve Regional Districts currently publish monthly data on regional manufacturing: Dallas, Kansas City, New York, Richmond, and Philadelphia. The latest average of the five for November is 14.1, down from the previous month’s 21. It is well below its all-time high of 25.1, set in May 2004. Here is the same chart including the average of the five. Readers will notice the range in expansion and contraction between all regions. For comparison, here is the latest ISM Manufacturing survey.

Chicago PMI Eased in November – The Chicago Business Barometer, also known as the Chicago Purchasing Manager’s Index, is similar to the national ISM Manufacturing indicator but at a regional level and is seen by many as an indicator of the larger US economy. It is a composite diffusion indicator, made up of production, new orders, order backlogs, employment, and supplier deliveries compiled through surveys. Values above 50.0 indicate expanding manufacturing activity.The latest Chicago Purchasing Manager’s Index, or the Chicago Business Barometer, fell to 58.2 in November from 61.1 in October, which is in expansion territory. Values above 50.0 indicate expanding manufacturing activity.Here is an excerpt from the press release:The Chicago Business BarometerTM, produced with MNI, slipped to 58.2 in November. The index now stands at the lowest level since August but remains in expansion.Among the main five indicators, New Orders and Production posted the only declines, while Supplier Deliveries saw the largest gain. [Source] Let’s take a look at the Chicago PMI since its inception.

ISM Services Index Decreased to 55.9% in November – The November ISM Services index was at 55.9%, down from 56.6% last month. The employment index increased to 51.5%, from 50.1%. Note: Above 50 indicates expansion, below 50 contraction.From the Institute for Supply Management: Services PMI at 55.9%; November 2020 Services ISM Report On Business: “The Services PMI registered 55.9 percent, 0.7 percentage point lower than the October reading of 56.6 percent. This reading represents a sixth straight month of growth for the services sector, which has expanded for all but two of the last 130 months. This graph shows the ISM services index (started in January 2008) and the ISM services employment diffusion index. This was close to the consensus forecast, and the employment index was barely above 50.

November Markit Services PMI: “Sharpest increase in output/new biz since March 2015” The November US Services Purchasing Managers’ Index conducted by Markit came in at 58.4 percent, up 1.5 from the final October estimate of 56.9. The Investing.com consensus was for 57.7 percent. Here is the opening from the latest press release:Commenting on the latest survey results, Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at IHS Markit, said:“November saw US business activity surge higher at a rate not seen since early-2015 as companies enjoyed sharply rising demand for goods and services. Confidence has picked up considerably, with encouraging news on vaccines coinciding with reduced political uncertainty following the presidential election, hopes of greater stimulus spending and fresh stock market highs. Optimism about the future is running at its highest since early-2014.“The recent improvement in demand and the brightening outlook encouraged firms to take on extra staff at a rate not previously seen since the survey began in 2009, underscoring how increased optimism is fuelling investment and expansion.“Pricing power is also being regained, with firms pushing up average charges for goods and services at a rate not seen for at least a decade, boding well for stronger profits growth.” [Press Release] Here is a snapshot of the series since mid-2012.

Jobless claims have best pandemic week yet – This week’s new jobless claims decreased close to their pandemic lows, while the unadjusted and 4 week averages did make new pandemic lows, as did continuing claims. On a unadjusted basis, new jobless claims fell by 122,453 to 713,824. Seasonally adjusted claims declined by 75,000 to 712,000, still 1,000 higher than their pandemic lows three weeks ago. The 4 week moving average also fell by 11,250 to 739,500. Here is the close up since the end of July (for comparison, remember that these numbers were in the range of 5 to 7 million at their worst in early April): Continuing claims historically lag initial claims typically by a few weeks to several months. On an unadjusted basis, they declined by 690,170 to 5,240,575. With seasonal adjustment they declined by 569,000 to 5,520,000, both new pandemic lows: Seasonally adjusted new jobless claims have declined almost 90% from their March and April pandemic high, and continuing claims have declined over 75% from their April high: Initial claims remain about 50,000 higher than their worst levels of the Great Recession, while continuing claims have actually dipped about 1 million less than their worst levels. Last week I wrote that “It appears increasingly likely that two weeks ago will mark an interim low, due to the pandemic spiraling out of control again in most of the country.” This week’s data shows that to be incorrect, as all measures made new pandemic lows, except for seasonally adjusted initial claims, which missed by 1,000. Still, as the below graph of the YoY% change in initial claims shows, on a YoY basis, progress stopped in November: We’re likely to get another positive number in tomorrow’s November jobs report, but my guess is it will be the weakest reading of the past 6 months. I still suspect the near term trajectory in new jobless claims is going to be poorer.

ADP: Private Employment increased 307,000 in November —From ADP: Private sector employment increased by 307,000 jobs from October to November according to the Novembe ADP National Employment Report. … The report, which is derived from ADP’s actual payroll data, measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonally-adjusted basis. “While November saw employment gains, the pace continues to slow,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute. “Job growth remained positive across all industries and sizes.” This was below the consensus forecast for 420 thousand private sector jobs added in the ADP report. The BLS report will be released Friday, and the consensus is for 500 thousand non-farm payroll jobs added in November. Of course the ADP report has not been very useful in predicting the BLS report.

A Closer Look at Today’s ADP Employment Report – In this morning’s ADP employment report we got the November estimate of 307K nonfarm private employment jobs gained from ADP, a decrease over Octob’ers revised 404K. The popular spin on this indicator is as a preview to the monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Here is a snapshot of the monthly change in the ADP headline number since the company’s earliest published data in April 2002. This is quite a volatile series, so we’ve plotted the monthly data points as dots along with a six-month moving average, which gives us a clearer sense of the trend.As we see in the chart above, the trend peaked 20 months before the last recession and went negative around the time that the NBER subsequently declared as the recession start. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought employment numbers down to levels we have never seen this century. ADP also gives us a breakdown of Total Nonfarm Private Employment into two categories: Goods Producing and Services. Here is the same chart style illustrating the two. The US is predominantly a services economy, so it comes as no surprise that Services employment has shown stronger jobs growth. The trend in Goods Producing jobs went negative over a year before the last recession. It makes sense that service-producing employment has plummeted during the pandemic for a couple of reasons – our economy is mostly supported by service-producing jobs; and during the pandemic those same services are being brought to a halt. For a sense of the relative size of Services over Goods Producing employment, the next chart shows the percentage of Services Jobs across the entire series. The latest data point is below the record high. There are a number of factors behind this trend. In addition to our increasing dependence on Services, Goods Production employment continues to be impacted by automation and offshoring. For a better sense of the components of the two Goods Producing and Service Providing cohorts, here is a snapshot of the five select industries tracked by ADP. The two things to note here are the relative sizes of the industries and the relative trends. Note that Construction and Manufacturing are Production industries whereas the other three are Service Providing. Another view of the relative trends of the five select industries is an overlay of the year-over-year comparison. For a longer-term perspective on the Goods Producing and Service Providing employment, see our monthly analysis, Secular Trends in Employment: Goods Producing Versus Services Providing, which is based on data from the Department of Labor’s monthly jobs report reaching back to 1939.

November Employment Report: 245 Thousand Jobs Added, 6.7% Unemployment Rate — From the BLS: Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 245,000 in November, and the unemployment rate edged down to 6.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. These improvements in the labor market reflect the continued resumption of economic activity that had been curtailed due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and efforts to contain it. However, the pace of improvement in the labor market has moderated in recent months. In November, notable job gains occurred in transportation and warehousing, professional and business services, and health care. Employment declined in government and retail trade. … In November, the unemployment rate edged down to 6.7 percent. The rate is down by 8.0 percentage points from its recent high in April but is 3.2 percentage points higher than it was in February. The number of unemployed persons, at 10.7 million, continued to trend down in November but is 4.9 million higher than in February. … The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for September was revised up by 39,000, from +672,000 to +711,000, and the change for October was revised down by 28,000, from +638,000 to +610,000. With these revisions, employment in September and October combined was 11,000 more than previously reported. The first graph shows the year-over-year change in total non-farm employment since 1968.In November, the year-over-year change was negative 9.19 million jobs. Total payrolls increased by 245 thousand in November. Private payrolls increased by 344 thousand. Payrolls for September and October were revised up 11 thousand combined. The second graph shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms. The current employment recession is by far the worst recession since WWII in percentage terms, and is still worse than the worst of the “Great Recession”. The third graph shows the employment population ratio and the participation rate. The Labor Force Participation Rate decreased to 61.5% in November. This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force. The Employment-Population ratio decreased to 57.3% (black line). The fourth graph shows the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate decreased in November to 6.7%. This was well below consensus expectations, however September and October were revised up by 15,000 combined.

Economy Adds 245,000 Jobs in November, Unemployment Falls to 6.7 Percent – Dean Baker – Contrary to normal patterns, the workweek has actually gotten longer in the pandemic recession. The rebound slowed sharply in November, with the economy adding just 245,000 jobs. This would ordinarily be a very respectable gain, but with the economy still down almost 10 million jobs from the pre-pandemic level, it is not a pace that gets us back to full employment any time soon. If we need 100,000 jobs a month to keep pace with the growth of the labor market, it would take us more than five and half years to get back to full employment at this rate of job growth. The unemployment rate fell 0.2 percentage points to 6.7 percent in November, however this was entirely due to people leaving the labor force, as employment dropped slightly. The employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) fell by 0.1 percentage points to 57.3 percent. The decline was entirely among men, who had a drop in labor force participation rates of 0.4 percentage points. Employment rates for men have actually fallen somewhat more over the course of the downturn than for women, with the EPOP for prime age men down by 4.8 percentage points from their year-ago level, compared to a 3.9 percentage points drop among women. The unemployment rate for Black workers fell by 0.5 percentage points to 10.3 percent, while the EPOP rose by 0.4 percentage points to 54.1 percent. The unemployment rate is 4.7 percentage points higher and the EPOP is 4.7 percentage points lower than the year-ago level. The unemployment rate for Asian Americans fell by 0.9 percentage points, but at 6.7 percent, it is still 0.8 percentage points above the rate for whites, reversing the normal pattern. Voluntary part-time employment fell by 786,000 in November. It is now 13.5 percent below year-ago levels. This reflects in large part the sharp hit to restaurants and hotels, sectors that employ large numbers of part-time workers. However, we are also seeing the length of the average workweek increase across sectors. For example, in retail trade the average workweek is 2.0 percent longer than it was a year ago; in education and health services it is 1.2 percent longer. This reverses the normal pattern in recessions as employers typically cut hours as a way to adjust to reduced labor demand rather than laying off workers. In 2009, the length of the average workweek was 1.5 percent shorter (0.5 hours) than it had been in 2007. Consistent with this pattern of rising hours, we again saw a large increase in the number of long-term unemployed (more than 26 weeks) to 3,941,000, the highest level since November of 2013. This indicates that many of the people who lost their jobs during the spring shutdown still have not gotten them back. [Graph] The share of unemployment due to voluntary quits dropped by 0.3 percentage points to 6.7 percent, while this is above the lows hit in the shutdown months, the worst figure in the Great Recession was 5.5 percent. By contrast, 25.9 percent of the unemployed report being on temporary layoffs, a higher level than any pre-pandemic figure … .

US adds 245,000 jobs as virus threatens the economy’s slow comeback – U.S. employers added a modest 245,000 jobs in November, as companies scaled back their hiring as the viral pandemic accelerates across the country. This marks the fewest added jobs since April and the fifth straight monthly slowdown.November’s job gain was down from 610,000 in October. Long-term unemployed, those jobless for more than 27 weeks, rose by 385,000 to 3.9 million.The report Friday from the Labor Department said the unemployment rate fell to 6.7 from 6.9% in October. Since April, the jobless rate has decreased from a peak of 14.7%.The report said unemployment rates declined for adult women in November whereas other major worker groups showed little or no change.U.S. deaths from the coronavirus topped 3,100 Wednesday, a new daily high, with more than 100,000 Americans hospitalized with the disease, also a record, and new confirmed daily cases topping 200,000. In the past month, many states have imposed new restrictions on businesses, and health officials are urging Americans to avoid all but essential travel.Many economists, along with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, have called on Congress to approveanother stimulus package to carry the economy into the spring, until a vaccine is widely distributed that would allow economic activity to start returning to normal.There are signs that the economic recovery is stumbling. Consumer spending grew in October at the slowest pace in six months. Seated diners at restaurants are declining again, according to data from the reservations website OpenTable. And a Fed report on business conditions found that growth cooled last month in several Midwest regions and in the Fed’s Philadelphia district. David Berson, chief economist at Nationwide, said he thinks the worst consequences of the pandemic won’t appear until the December jobs report is issued in early January. The November report “will be the last hurrah for the next several months,” Berson said.

November Jobs Report: 245K Jobs Added, Unemployment Rate Drops to 6.7% – This morning’s employment report for November showed a 245K increase in total nonfarm payrolls, which was below the Investing.com forecast of 469K. Here is an excerpt from the Employment Situation Summary released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 245,000 in November, and the unemployment rate edged down to 6.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. These improvements in the labor market reflect the continued resumption of economic activity that had been curtailed due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and efforts to contain it. However, the pace of improvement in the labor market has moderated in recent months. In November, notable job gains occurred in transportation and warehousing, professional and business services, and health care. Employment declined in government and retail trade. This news release presents statistics from two monthly surveys. The household survey measures labor force status, including unemployment, by demographic characteristics. The establishment survey measures nonfarm employment, hours, and earnings by industry. Data collection for both surveys was affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In the establishment survey, approximately one-fifth of the establishments are assigned to four regional data collection centers for collection. Although these centers were closed, interviewers at these centers worked remotely to collect data by telephone. Additionally, BLS encouraged businesses to report electronically. The collection rate for the establishment survey was 74 percent in November, about the same as the average for the 12 months ending in February 2020. The household survey is generally conducted through in-person and telephone interviews. However, for the safety of both interviewers and respondents, in-person interviews were conducted only when telephone interviews could not be done. The household survey response rate was 79 percent in November, considerably higher than the low of 65 percent in June but below the average of 83 percent for the 12 months ending in February 2020. In the establishment survey, workers who are paid by their employer for all or any part of the pay period including the 12th of the month are counted as employed, even if they were not actually at their jobs. Workers who are temporarily or permanently absent from their jobs and are not being paid are not counted as employed, even if they continue to receive benefits. In the household survey, individuals are classified as employed, unemployed, or not in the labor force based on their answers to a series of questions about their activities during the survey reference week (November 8th through November 14th). Workers who indicate they were not working during the entire survey reference week and expect to be recalled to their jobs should be classified as unemployed on temporary layoff. As in recent months, a large number of persons were classified as unemployed ontemporary layoff in November. Since March, household survey interviewers have been instructed to classify employed persons absent from work due to temporary, coronavirus-related business closures or cutbacks as unemployed on temporary layoff. As happened in earlier months, some workers affected by the pandemic who should have been classified as unemployed on temporary layoff were instead misclassified as employed but not at work. However, the share of responses that may have been misclassified was highest in the early months of the pandemic and has been considerably lower in recent months. For March through October, BLS published an estimate of what the unemployment rate would have been had misclassified workers been included among the unemployed. Repeating this same approach, the overall November unemployment rate would have been 0.4 percentage point higher than reported. However, this represents the upper bound of our estimate of misclassification and probably overstates the size of the misclassification error. According to usual practice, the data from the household survey are accepted as recorded. To maintain data integrity, no ad hoc actions are taken to reclassify survey responses. Here is a snapshot of the monthly percent change in Nonfarm Employment since 2000. We’ve added a 12-month moving average to highlight the long-term trend.

The Jobs Report is a Mess, December Will Be Messier – Wolf Richter – Everyone seems to be baking the highly anticipated potential future vaccines into the economic cake, but what has been happening for weeks is a spike in Covid cases across the US that has already triggered economic restrictions, including various versions of stay-at-home orders in Los Angeles County, San Francisco, and some other Bay Area counties, with restaurants closed for outdoor dining, strict capacity restrictions in retail stores, and many other restrictions. These moves are ahead of the State of California’s new framework for dealing with the spiking infections. Other states and cities have similar programs, either on the front burner or on the back burner. The Covid spike has already crimped economic activity and jobs over the past few weeks and is going to do more severely going forward.But the jobs report released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics was based on surveys of “establishments” for the pay period through November 12; and on surveys of households for the week through November 14.So the data we got today largely missed the labor market consequences of the spike in Covid cases. Those consequence are coming in the next employment reports, starting with the report for December. Despite the cut-off dates having kept much of the Covid-impacted jobs data out of the results, the data have actually deteriorated in several aspects, including the number of people with jobs as reported by households, the employment-population rate, and the labor force. The headline number of 245,000 jobs created came from surveys of establishments (companies, governments, nonprofits, educational institutions, etc.). That survey doesn’t track gig workers. It depicted a lousy recovery. But lousy as it was, it was the more benign part. The survey of households, on the other hand, tracks people who are working full or part time, including gig workers. And households reported that the number of people with jobs ticked down to 149.7 million. This wasn’t a slowdown in growth, but an actual decline of 74,000 working people – the first month-to-month decline since April. The chart shows both results, from establishments (green) and from households (red) – the biggest part of the difference being gig workers. It’s obvious that even by November 12, before the real impact of the Covid surge, this was no good, in terms of catching up with population growth, or in terms of anything else: The employment-population ratio, which tracks the number of employed workers against the working-age population (16 years or older) also dipped in November, to 57.3%, a level first seen since in 1972: Over the long term, the employment-population ratio tracks the progress of globalization – of corporate America outsourcing labor to cheap countries – not only manufacturing and all the economic support that comes with it, but also all kinds of intellectual property work, such as coding and automotive design, and all kinds of other service work, from call centers to basic lawyering. This movement took on momentum in the late 1990s. Since then, after each crisis, companies offshored more work, and the employment-population ratio recovered from the plunge, but not to its previous level, before the next crisis hit and the plunge started all over again, from lower highs to lower lows:

November jobs report: the “least positive” report since April — HEADLINES:

• 245,000 million jobs gained. The gains since May total about 55% of the 22.1 million job losses in March and April. The alternate, and more volatile measure in the household report indicated a loss of -74,000 jobs, which factors into the unemployment and underemployment rates below.
• U3 unemployment rate fell -0.2% from 6.9% to 6.7%, compared with the January low of 3.5%.
• U6 underemployment rate fell -0.1% from 12.1% to 12.0%, compared with the January low of 6.9%.
• Those on temporary layoff decreased -441,000 to 2,764,,000.
• Permanent job losers increased by 59,000 to 3,743,000.
• September was revised upward by 39,000. October was revised downward by -28,000 respectively, for a net gain of 11,000 jobs compared with previous reports.
• the average manufacturing workweek declined -0.2 hours from 40.5 hours to 40.3 hours. This is one of the 10 components of the LEI and will be a negative.
• Manufacturing jobs increased by 27,000. Manufacturing has still lost -599,000 jobs in the past 9 months, or -4.7% of the total. About 55% of the total loss of 10.6% has been regained.
• Construction jobs increased by 27,000. Even so, in the past 9 months -279,000 construction jobs have been lost, -3.7% of the total. About 75% of the worst loss of 15.2% loss has been regained.
• Residential construction jobs, which are even more leading, rose by 1,300. In the past 9 months there have still been 6,100 lost jobs, or about -0.7% of the total.
• temporary jobs rose by 32,200. Since February, there have still been -293,200 jobs lost, or -10% of all temporary help jobs.
• the number of people unemployed for 5 weeks or less fell by -33,000 to million, compared with April’s total of 14.283 million.
• Professional and business employment rose by 60,000, which is still -1,061,000, or about -5.0% below its February peak.
• the index of aggregate hours worked for non-managerial workers rose by 0.3%. In the past 9 months combined this has nevertheless fallen by about -6.0%.
• the index of aggregate payrolls for non-managerial workers rose by 0.6%. In the past 9 months combined this has nevertheless fallen by about -2.4%. About 85% of the loss from February to April has been made back up.
• Full time jobs gained 752,000 in the household report.
• Part time jobs declined -779,000 in the household report.
• The number of job holders who were part time for economic reasons decreased by -23,000 to 6.660 million. This is still an increase since February of 2,342,000.

SUMMARY: This was a mixed report. Most of the headlines were positive, but there were several important internal weaknesses. Most importantly, permanent layoffs increased, and the manufacturing workweek declined. This is a warning that the manufacturing surge may be ebbing, while temporary job losses are metastasizing into permanent ones. The headline number of job gains was by far the least positive of any gains since April. On the other hand, all of the other leading job categories showed increases in employment. Additionally, both average and aggregate hours and payrolls continued to increase pretty strongly. Aggregate payrolls are back where they were a year ago (of course, inflation has eaten away at some of that rebound). The overall tone remained positive – but the “least positive” of the last 6 months.

Comments on November Employment Report — The headline jobs number in the November employment report was well below expectations, however employment for the previous two months were revised up slightly, combined. Government employment declined 99 thousand in November. The job losses at the Federal level were due to letting go temporary decennial workers, however state and local governments lost jobs again. These state and local government job losses could increase sharply in early 2021 if there is no disaster relief for the states. Leisure and hospitality added another 31 thousand jobs in November, following 4.84 million jobs added in May through October. Leisure and hospitality lost 8.3 million jobs in March and April, so about 59% of those jobs were added back in the May through November period. Earlier: November Employment Report: 245 Thousand Jobs Added, 6.7% Unemployment Rate In November, the year-over-year employment change was minus 9.19 million jobs.This graph shows permanent job losers as a percent of the pre-recession peak in employment through the November report. (ht Joe Weisenthal at Bloomberg) This data is only available back to 1994, so there is only data for three recessions. In November, the number of permanent job losers increased to 3.743 million from 3.684 million in October. Since the overall participation rate has declined due to cyclical (recession) and demographic (aging population, younger people staying in school) reasons, here is the employment-population ratio for the key working age group: 25 to 54 years old. The prime working age will be key in the eventual recovery. The 25 to 54 participation rate decreased in November to 80.9% from 81.2% in October, and the 25 to 54 employment population ratio was unchanged at 76.0% from 76.0% in October. Typically retail companies start hiring for the holiday season in October, and really increase hiring in November. Here is a graph that shows the historical net retail jobs added for October, November and December by year. I expect the long term trend will be down with more and more internet holiday shopping. Retailers hired 302 thousand workers (NSA) net in November. Note: this is NSA (Not Seasonally Adjusted). This was a loss of 35 thousand jobs, seasonally adjusted, in November. This might be distorted this year by a combination of seasonal hiring – and some bounce back in employment from the shutdowns earlier this year.The number of persons working part time for economic reasons decreased slightly in November to 6.660 million from 6.684 million in October. These workers are included in the alternate measure of labor underutilization (U-6) that decreased to 12.0% in November. This is down from the record high in April 22.8% for this measure since 1994. This graph shows the number of workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more. According to the BLS, there are 3.941 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and still want a job. This has increased sharply – since the largest number of layoffs were around April – and this will be a key measure to follow during the recovery. Summary: The headline monthly jobs number was well below expectations, however the previous two months were revised up 11,000 combined. The headline unemployment rate decreased to 6.7%, but this was due to a decline in the participation rate. Overall this was a disappointing report.

Women and the Middle-Aged Taking Brunt of Covid Employment Losses – Yves Smith — The Wall Street Journal provides a recap of how the workforce has changed as a result of Covid. Even though this week’s jobless claim figures were better than expected and unemployment has fallen to 6.9%, nearly half of its recent peak, those figures mask underlying erosion in employment. Headline unemployment is calculated based on the number actively seeking work. As the subhead to the Journal story explains, “Nearly four million Americans have stopped working or looking for jobs.” It adds: The labor-force participation rate, or the share of Americans 16 years and over working or seeking work, was 61.7% in October, down from 63.4% in February. Though up from April’s trough, that is near its lowest since the 1970s, when far fewer women were in the workforce. The supply of workers and their productivity are the building blocks of economic growth. A smaller labor force leaves fewer workers to build machines and clean tables, restraining the economy’s long-term prospects. The Journal further describes that women and those over 55 have taken the biggest hits, and decline results from three sometimes overlapping factors. First, business closures/job reductions are skewed toward fields where women are over-represented, like retail, hospitality, and personal services. Second, many prime age women have had to stop working to care for children due to school closures. Third, older workers typically often it difficult to land a job again if they lose one in a recession. Again from the Journal: For those of you old enough to remember, the 1980-1981 downturn was ugly, the worst since the Great Depression, and the economy had been limping for the past six-seven previous years due to stagflation. Weaker labor protection almost certainly plays a big role in lower levels of employment among over-55 year old workers, particularly given that older people are generally more robust than then. Individuals in union jobs would not have to retire until they were ready to, and seniority-based pay scales would encourage them to work until 60 or later. Union contracts were de facto standard setters, including for white collar jobs. It would have been unusual back then for a solid employee to be pushed out before retirement age unless a business was in trouble. Keep in mind that this picture of Covid job losses is very different from the job loss pattern after the Financial Crisis, where men suffered due to the loss of construction job

Labor Department Published Flawed Estimates of Weekly Jobless Claims, Watchdog Says – WSJ – The nation’s system for providing unemployment benefits to jobless workers has consistently produced inaccurate data and lower-than-appropriate payouts to millions of workers amid the Covid-19 pandemic, a government watchdog said Monday. The Labor Department’s weekly reports on jobless claims have published “flawed estimates of the number of individuals receiving benefits each week throughout the pandemic,” the Government Accountability Office said in a periodic report, warning that the inaccuracies could hinder policy makers’ ability to effectively respond to the economic fallout. The report said the weekly data had included overestimates and underestimates at various times, but GAO officials said they didn’t know the full extent of the errors. In addition, a program created by Congress to provide jobless benefits to workers who are normally not eligible for them has underpaid recipients in most states. As a result, the average weekly payout under what is called the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program – which is available to gig-economy workers and the self-employed – is below the poverty line in 70% of states that reported data. “The majority of states have been paying PUA claimants the minimum allowable benefit instead of the amount they are eligible for based on prior earnings,” the GAO said. While states are obligated to pay out the full amount that is owed “with the greatest promptness that is administratively feasible,” Labor Department officials told the GAO they didn’t know how many states had begun working to do so. The Labor Department didn’t respond to requests for comment. The GAO report said much of the inaccurate data in the department’s weekly jobless-claims reports stemmed from inconsistent reporting from states, many of which have been overwhelmed by processing backlogs of claims. Thomas Costa, acting director of the GAO’s education, workforce and income-security team, said the office didn’t have exact estimates of the magnitude of the inaccuracies in Labor Department data or for the total number of PUA claimants who have been underpaid. He said the latter figure is likely in the millions. Nathan Courtney, a 30-year-old Army veteran in Mobile, Ala., who lost his construction job amid lockdowns in the spring, said his unemployment checks were recently cut to $113 a week, the state’s minimum payout, from $275, the maximum. The change occurred after he was transferred to PUA.

“It’s Really Bad” – Almost One-Third Of Small Businesses In NY, NJ Have Closed – Here comes the next recession as nearly one-third of small businesses in New York and New Jersey remain closed since the virus pandemic began earlier this year. The NYPost outlines small business data from Opportunity Insights and New Jersey Business & Industry Association paint a troubling outlook for the rest of 2020 into 2021. Opportunity Insights’ TrackingTheRecovery.Org, a Harvard database that monitors economic activity for the US, currently says 27.8% of small businesses in New York remain closed. The same goes for New Jersey, where 31.2% of small businesses had not reopened. The New Jersey Business & Industry Association reports similar figures with 28% of New Jersey’s small businesses have closed up shop this year. With top federal health officials on Sunday warning about a post-Thanksgiving spike in COVID-19, the reemergence of the virus in New York and New Jersey, along with stricter social distancing measures, means that more small businesses may be decimated in the months ahead. “It’s really bad,” Eileen Kean, New Jersey state director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, told the Star-Ledger. “And without federal dollars coming into New Jersey, the Main Street stores and other establishments are not gonna make it through the winter,” Kean said. “It’s devastating how many restaurants have shuttered and jobs have been lost,” said Andrew Rigie, executive director of NYC Hospitality Alliances. “And with the infection rate rising and the looming threat of indoor dining closing again, many more will close unless the government provides adequate support to these small businesses,” Rigie said.

Las Vegas Visitor Authority: No Convention Attendance, Visitor Traffic Down 49% YoY in October — From the Las Vegas Visitor Authority: October 2020 Las Vegas Visitor Statistics: Visitor volume continued to rampâ€up in October as the destination hosted approx. 1.86M visitors, about half of last October’s tally but up 9% from last month. With continued hotel reâ€openings at the end of Sep and in early Oct, the room tally of open properties in October represented 140,658 rooms. Total occupancy was 46.9% for the month as weekend occupancy reached 64.2% and midweek occupancy reached 38.6%. Average daily rates among open properties reached $104.54 (â€3.3% MoM, â€22.8% YoY) while RevPAR came in at roughly $49, down â€59.7% vs. last October. * Reflects weighted average of daily room tallies Here is the data from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Convention traffic in October was down 100% compared to October 2019. And visitor traffic was down 49% YoY. The casinos started to reopen on June 4th (it appears about 94% of rooms have now opened).

The NFL’s Thanksgiving Weekend Has Become a Covid Crisis – WSJ – The National Football League’s Thanksgiving weekend is supposed to be a feast of tradition and marquee matchups. The pandemic-year edition has exploded into a series of crises that threaten to break the NFL’s season. Over the past several days, new coronavirus problems erupted across the league as Covid-19 cases continued to surge throughout the country. The situation is so severe that, after Sunday’s games, the NFL will shut down most in-person activities for two days to regroup from the weekend amid worries that behavior over the holiday may make matters worse. The problems include:

• An outbreak inside the Baltimore Ravens that led to the postponement of their Thanksgiving night game against the undefeated Pittsburgh Steelers, who now have their own cluster of cases;
• The Denver Broncos being left without a quarterback for their game Sunday after one player’s positive test sent all of the its quarterbacks into league-mandated quarantine;
• A temporary ban on contact sports in Santa Clara County, Calif., that has sent the San Francisco 49ers scrambling for a place to practice and play.

In a stark signal of the situation’s severity, commissioner Roger Goodell sent a memo on Friday that prohibits teams from practicing or conducting any in-person activities on Monday and Tuesday this week, excepting the teams playing on those days. The memo said the decision was in response to both the increase in positivity rates across the country and the recent holiday, saying it is the league’s “understanding that a number of players and staff celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday with out-of-town guests.” The NFL isn’t yet considering pausing the season or immediately trying to get players into more sealed environments, such as hotels, during the regular season, a person familiar with the matter said. The NFL’s crisis didn’t happen in isolation. Recent weeks have produced record-high case totals in the U.S. – and America’s most popular sport isn’t immune. The surge in positives nationwide has been reflected in the NFL, where far more players and staff have contracted the virus than earlier in the year. Over the season’s first three weeks back in September, an average of six players or staff tested positive per week across the entire league. In the first two weeks of November that weekly leaguewide average was nine times higher: 54. “It reflects the continued uptick that we’re seeing in cases around the country,”

Michigan restaurants urged to defy governor’s COVID-19 restrictions The two owners of a Michigan restaurant chain reportedly wrote a letter asking other restaurateurs to continue operations regardless of whether or not state Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and state health department officials implement stricter lockdowns on indoor dining. The Detroit Free Press reports that Joe and Rosalie Vicari, the owners of Andiamo restaurants in Detroit, penned a letter asking restaurants to fight any closures issued following the outcome of a lawsuit filed by the Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association that seeks to halt the state’s attempts at shutting dining operations down to prevent COVID-19 transmission. The Vicaris wrote that if they lose the lawsuit, the state will likely shut down dining operations through the end of the year. “Our industry cannot survive another extended closure,” the letter reportedly reads. “Thousands of restaurants and tens of thousands of our employees can not survive it either. We need to band together and FIGHT BACK but we need to do this as a United Group of Michigan Restaurant Owners.” Rosalie Vicari confirmed to reporters that she and her husband authored the letter. Part of Michigan’s public health restrictions include closing down indoor dining and restaurants and bars, organized and pro sports, in-person high schools, movie theaters, and other public spaces. These spaces will remain shut down for three weeks. The Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association sued the state over the mandate, and was denied a temporary restraining order on the policy on Nov. 20.

Democratic Austin Mayor Urged Citizens Not To Relax… Stay Home While Vacationing In Cabo – George Orwell’s Animal Farm gave us the useful phrase “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” The latest case in point is Austin Mayor Steve Adler. Back in November, he told Austin to stay home to stay safe. But he wasn’t at home at all when he said this. Statesman.com’s Tony Plohetski reports the details that in early November, as health officials warned of a impending COVID-19 spike, Austin Mayor Steve Adler hosted an outdoor wedding and reception with 20 guests for his daughter at a trendy hotel near downtown. The next morning, Adler and seven other wedding attendees boarded a private jet bound for Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where they vacationed for a week at a family timeshare. One night into the trip, Adler addressed Austin residents in a Facebook video: “We need to stay home if you can. This is not the time to relax. We are going to be looking really closely. … We may have to close things down if we are not careful.” In hosting the wedding and traveling internationally, Adler said he broke neither his own order or those established by Gov. Greg Abbott. But at the time, the city was recommending people not gather in groups of more than 10, and the day after Adler’s departure, Austin’s health authority warned that “it’s important that we drive the (COVID-19) numbers down in advance of Thanksgiving.”

“with our breathtaking landscapes and wide-open spaces, we’re a place to safely explore.” — Celebrate what makes America great, and experience the Great Faces and Great Places of South Dakota. . Both South and North Dakota have emerged as the nations hot spots for Covid infections even though sparsely populated per square mile and with smaller populations than other states. The situation has worsened since this article was originally run by CBS News and if North and South Dakota were countries they would be #1 and #2 globally for cases per million with a death rate per million in the top ten globally. Is there no shame left? South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s administration announced Tuesday that it is using federal coronavirus relief funds to pay for a $5 million tourism ad campaign aimed at drawing people to the state. The move comes even as the state emerges as one of the nation’s top hot spots (#2 after North Dakota) for COVID-19 infections per million. South Dakota with ~900,000 people ranks second in the US for Covid cases/million (89,412) and second only to North Dakota (102,269) with a lesser population of ~800,000. The death rate per million for South Dakota is 1065/million placing it #9 in the US and after more densely populated states in the US. Considering South Dakota’s Covid infection rate of 89,412/million with a population of 900,000, a population density of 11 people per square mile, and comparing it to other states with greater population densities per square mile; the claim by Gov. Kristi Noem’s of South Dakota being “a place to safely explore” If North and South Dakota were nations, they would rank one and two in cases per million and deaths per million (aside from other states in the US which have higher deaths/million).Thnk about it, how do you do this, boast about how safe you are in the US, and then appropriate money to encourage people to come to your state; when you are the worst of the worst for cases in the US and globally and top the death rate globally if considered a nation? If, and I don’t, wanted to be close to people with Covid; I can just step outside in Michigan and go to a grocery store.

Absolutely Crazy – Sub-Zero Freezer Demand Erupts Ahead Of Vaccine Distribution -Demand for sub-zero freezers has erupted over the last month following encouraging COVID-19 vaccine developments from Pfizer and the German firm BioNTech. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has to be stored at -70 degrees Celsius – standard commercial freezers don’t get that cold – forcing many hospital systems across the country to panic buy these special freezers from refrigerator-maker So-Low Environmental Equipment. Dean Hensler, vice president of So-Low, told CNBC’s Squawk on the Street that “right now we are out of everything.” Hensler said the anticipation of coronavirus vaccine distribution had unleashed a massive buying wave of ultra-cold freezers by hospital systems that plan on storing then distributing the vaccine. Last week, Pfizer-BioNTech filed for emergency use authorization with the FDA for approval – a meeting had been scheduled for Dec. 8, 9, and 10 – Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said the first doses of the vaccine could be shipped out within hours of the EUA approval.Reuters quoted President Trump on Thursday evening, saying the vaccine could begin delivery as soon as next week. The largest hurdle for a nationwide vaccine rollout is the expanding need for cold storage. “We had heard that the Pfizer was going to have to be stored at minus 70. We took it upon ourselves to say, ‘Hey, listen, we’ve got to do something about this,'” Hensler said. “Our phones started ringing off the hook the day it … got out to the public. That inventory we had built was gone like in three weeks, so now we’re building everything per order,” he said. “We’re running about six to eight weeks on delivery right now. It’s been crazy. It’s been crazy.”“We’re going to work Friday after Thanksgiving,” Hensler said. The way the company sees it, he said, “The quicker we can get freezers out, the more people can get vaccinated, and we can get back to the old normal, rather than this new normal.”Earlier this week, UPS announced it would produce thousands of pounds of dry ice per day and provide cold storage facilities and transportation for COVID-19 vaccines.

Nearly 26 million Americans are going hungry the week of Thanksgiving – Robert Reich – A staggering one in EIGHT Americans reported they sometimes or often didn’t have enough food to eat in the past week. That’s nearly 26 million Americans who are going hungry the week of Thanksgiving. And a full quarter of out-of-work Americans with children at home reported not having enough food to eat. The numbers are worse for Black households than for white ones: 22 percent of Black households reported going hungry in the past week, over 2.5 times the rate for white households. Food banks are overwhelmed trying to meet the new surge in demand: “We’ll be hard pressed to keep up. We’re just bracing for the worst,” said the CEO of Feeding Texas. Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell adjourned the Senate last week and let them skip town early for Thanksgiving. He and his do nothing Senate Republicans get to go home to their families and sit down to a table bursting with food, while 26 million of their fellow Americans starve. As long as their rich friends are happy now that the stock market is soaring, they couldn’t be bothered to serve their constituents. It’s one of the grossest abdications of duty I’ve ever seen. There are no words to truly describe Mitch McConnell’s moral bankruptcy.

COVID-19 impact: $170 million in delinquent Duke Energy bills – The COVID-19 pandemic is hitting many families so hard financially that utility companies across the mountains are reporting major increases in the number of customers unable to pay to keep their lights on. There has been a 12% increase in customers who are 30 days delinquent in paying bills compared to this time last year, Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress reported. Duke Energy, which serves 3.4 million North Carolina residents, reported a balance of more than $170 million in delinquent bills for residential customers across North Carolina. There has been a 12% increase in customers who are 30 days delinquent in paying bills compared to this time last year, Duke Energy Carolinas reported. (Photo credit: WLOS staff) Su Vandehey, who lives in Asheville, has been struggling for months to stay afloat. “It’s been very stressful,” said Vandehey, who finished school to become a massage therapist last year. “The testing centers were closed (because of the pandemic), so I was then unable to get licensed and start my business.” Vandehey, who is raising a 5-year-old daughter and has another on the way, is working part-time doing food delivery. Duke Energy spokesman Jason Walls said the company is doing what it can to help people who are struggling. “Turning off a customer’s power is the absolute last resort, and we don’t want to do that,” Walls said. Duke also offers interest-free extended payments. Vandehey misunderstood a bill she received in October and feared Duke was about to turn her power off. But the bill actually said Duke was about to begin the process. Still she was scared..

Florida power shutoffs are up slightly from last year as pandemic continues – Roughly 30,000 residential customers of Duke Energy Florida and Tampa Electric Co. had their power shut off in October after the state’s investor-owned utilities resumed disconnections for people who haven’t paid their bills. That’s up about 8 percent from the same month a year ago, as the coronavirus pandemic maintained its grip on the U.S., forcing employers to shutter their workplaces and layoff employees to contain the spread. Most customers – about 86 percent ― managed to have their service restored. But 4,000 residential customers remained without power at the end of the month, according to the most recent state regulatory filings. While the numbers aren’t significantly different than this time last year, Bradley Marshall, a lawyer with advocacy group Earthjustice, noted that the actual number of people affected is much larger. Multiple members of a household, for example, are part of the single account for that home. “The point is you shouldn’t be turning off people’s electricity during a pandemic,” he said. “People are being told they’re not able to see their families over Thanksgiving, but if their power’s off, they’re going to be doubling up.” As of October, nearly 4 percent of Duke Energy’s residential customers around the state were on some form of a payment plan, the average length of which was just over 7 months. Tampa Electric reported that 2.5 percent of its customers were on a payment plan averaging 42 days

Utility customers owe up to $40B in COVID-19 debt, but who will pay it? – Shutoff moratoria across the country, allowing COVID-impacted residential and small business customers to defer utility payments without the threat of losing service, have been invaluable to millions, authorities on energy bill assistance say. But when the vaccines are dispensed and the pandemic fades, any economic recovery will be impacted by potentially huge debts to utilities, debts that have yet to be addressed anywhere, experts said. State regulators will decide whether the indebted customers, all utility customers, investors, taxpayers – or some combination of those groups – should pay this bill. We surveyed 1,000 utility customers. Watch our video to learn how to use the findings to improve the customer experience and drive energy saving actions. Residential and small business customers could owe “$35 billion to $40 billion dollars to their utilities by March 2021,” according to National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association (NEADA) Executive Director Mark Wolfe. “Our new arrearage data shows that by then, individual unpaid bills may be as high as $1,500 to $2,000, which is as much as some customers pay for electricity in a year.” Utilities have done remarkable things to keep customers’ lights on and “just get through the pandemic,” spokespeople for San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), Duke Energy and other utilities said. But policymakers and regulators must now plan to get working-class families the debt forgiveness that businesses and institutions got from the federal government’s paycheck protection programs, Wolfe said. “The reality is that someone is going to pay,” said University of Florida Public Utility Research Center Director of Energy Studies Theodore J. Kury. Policymakers’ and regulators’ choices include requiring payment from indebted customers, shifting the debt to utilities and their ratepayers, imposing it on taxpayers, or some combination. Although there may eventually be some good from the decision – like a better understanding of the effectiveness of moratoria or an improved relationship between utilities and their customers – they now must choose “how and when people pay,” he added. Starting in March, many states and utilities suspended power shut-offs for nonpayment. State-mandated or voluntary utility shut-off moratoria are now in place for 51% of the U.S. population (167 million people) across the country through Jan. 31, 2021, according to NEADA data from November. As a result, utilities are seeing diminished revenues as they face unexpected expenses. The pandemic “required us to dramatically adjust how we operate,” Duke spokesperson Neil Nissan said. Like many utilities, Duke suspended disconnections for unpaid bills and waived late and other fees. The utility also helped customers enroll in local payment programs, the federal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) or state and local assistance programs, including Duke Energy Foundation-funded local assistance agencies.

New Mexico Public Schools Are Missing Over 12,000 Students – Public schools have had a chance to evaluate student attendance data and have found “missing students” between the Spring and Fall semesters of this school year. You might ask why they are suddenly so concerned about this fact. Is it because they are concerned about students who are not getting an education? Or, is it because they will lose money without students in attendance? It may be some of each, but the last question could be the primary motivation for state public education departments to do a canvas of attendance over the Fall semester. And of course, don’t forget indoctrination. That’s a lot more difficult when the kids are being educated outside “the system.” Public schools receive their funding from a number of sources, most of which comes from the local (44%) and state (48%) property taxes. Federal government (8%) funding is designated to serve disadvantaged populations, including families in poverty, students who have special needs, a student population of English language learners, and teacher quality improvement programs, seen in the form of grants. (Source) Each state has its own funding formula, but in my state, the money is allocated by the legislature and based upon a number of factors, the largest of which is student enrollment. Well, as you can imagine, COVID-19 has had an unprecedented effect on student enrollment and attendance. Many of the school districts in my state elected to do school entirely online. As a result, some parents have decided to homeschool, others don’t have reliable internet and their children cannot consistently attend online classes, and others may have left the state as their jobs evaporated with the lockdowns. The NM Public Education Department (PED) wants to know where they’ve gone and wants to woo them back with a program called Engage NM. Now, this program sounds quite altruistic and is funded through a partnership with NM PED and Graduation Alliance. Graduation Alliance operates primarily in New Mexico, South Carolina, Arkansas, Kansas, Washington, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, and some school districts in Texas. Its aim is to enroll students who have dropped out of school into their accredited online program. That’s an interesting twist. Why would a public education department promote enrolling its own students in an out-of-state program that is free of charge? In an article posted on KOAT, the New Mexico Public Education Department reveals, over 12,000 of students enrolled in the spring, have now “gone missing,” and with them the funding they generated.

New York City schools to reopen amid explosion of coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, deaths — New York City’s Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to reopen the city’s schools next week, which was announced Sunday, is a direct threat to the lives of the students, parents and teachers involved. Moreover, it is a warning to the working class in the United States and internationally that even as numerous coronavirus vaccines are nearing completion, workers and youth will continue to be sent into workplaces and schools to needlessly get sick and die. De Blasio’s plan was summarized on his Twitter account, where he noted that all 3-K, Pre-K and K-5 students will resume in-person learning beginning Dec. 7, followed by all grade levels for students with disabilities on Dec. 10. The order came amid an explosion of daily coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in the city, which have both more than doubled in the past month, along with a 50 percent increase in daily deaths during that same period. They demonstrate that there is no medical basis for the school reopenings. Indeed, a key part of de Blasio’s new plan is the abandonment of the earlier three percent coronavirus positivity threshold that was crossed in the city on Nov. 11, which triggered the school closures earlier this month. Instead, in the wake of the city’s positivity rate rising to 3.6 percent, the students will be given “weekly COVID-19 testing,” with little concrete information provided as to what will occur when outbreaks in various buildings inevitably occur. The school reopening is being aided and abetted by Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, who commented Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that, “the default position should be as best as possible, within reason, to keep the children in school and get them back to school.”

In Sudden Reversal, de Blasio Announces NYC To Reopen Elementary Schools, Phase Out Hybrid Learning – NYC mayor Bill de Blasio may still doesn’t have a plan for reopening NYC’s schools, but that’s not going to stop him from sending hundreds of thousands of elementary school students back into the classrooms starting early next month. While Middle Schools and High Schools will remain closed, elementary schools will reopen immediately abruptly abandoning the 3% positive test rate threshold for Covid-19 he set earlier for closing the schools. “There’s less concern about the spread when it comes to younger kids,” de Blasio said in a news conference, clearly ignoring what “the scientists” have been saying, namely that young children are among the top vectors for covid spread. “And I feel for all our parents who are experiencing so many challenges right now.” De Blasio also promised to ‘overhaul’ how the city manages schools during the pandemic, suggesting that more students would be returning to classrooms, while remote learning would start to be abandoned. The city’s 3% 7-day positivity rate threshold for ending in-person learning will be ditched in favor of allowing parents to decide whether they want their children in classrooms for 5 days a week.Children in pre-K and elementary school can return to classrooms beginning Dec. 7, while students with other more complex disabilities will start Dec. 10. Evidence has shown that elementary school students and students with disabilities can return to the classroom without causing much, if any, spread. De Blasio’s decision to close schools for the second time just 8 weeks after reopening them became a flash point in a broader debate about whether closing public schools does more harm to society than good, especially after Europe made schools a priority. Sunday’s announcement reflects a stark departure from the city’s original approach to managing the schools during the outbreak, especially by offering a plan to return students to classroom-based learning and away from ‘hybrid’ approaches.The mayor’s new blueprint represents the city’s second shot at reopening, after the first attempt was plagued by problems and his threshold to close schools was roundly criticized by everyone from local health officials to parents.Now, instead of using a specific metric to close schools, the city will closely monitor the number of classrooms and schools that close because of multiple confirmed cases. The mayor has long insisted that the entire public school system should reopen, and that every student, from kindergarten through 12th grade, should have the option of learning in person. But it doesn’t look like the new system will work that way.Instead, NYC schools will operate more like other school systems, with primarily younger and less risky students receiving in person education while older more mature students who are better equipped to handle remote learning can stick with that.

The conspiracy to reopen schools – On Sunday, Democratic Party Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that New York City would abandon its school safety guidelines and reopen schools even though COVID-19 is surging out of control throughout the city. In moving to reopen schools, de Blasio simply ignored the city’s rule that schools would be closed when the test positivity rate exceeded three percent. The rule was initially put in place in an effort to contain mass opposition among teachers to the unsafe reopening of the school district. Not only is the rate above three percent, it has risen to nearly four percent. The mayor’s decision, backed by the unions, is driven not by considerations of science or public health, but by the demands of Wall Street. The ruling class wants schools open to house children under unsafe conditions so that their parents can go back to work, also under unsafe conditions. The reopening of schools in New York City, the country’s largest school district, sets the pattern for the entire country and is intended to enforce the ruling class policy of “herd immunity.” De Blasio justified his actions with a single sentence: “We know first of all studies consistently show that younger kids are having less of a negative experience, and there’s less concern about the spread when it comes to younger kids.” This is a bald faced lie. All reputable scientific surveys contradict his claim that there is now “less concern” about the spread of COVID-19 in schools. A study published just two weeks ago in Nature, which is among the world’s foremost scientific journals, found that closing schools is one of the most effective ways to contain COVID-19. The study, “Ranking the effectiveness of worldwide COVID-19 government interventions,” was published by researchers at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. As more data comes in, it has become clearer that school closures do prevent the spread of COVID-19. It notes that “school closures in the United States have been found to reduce COVID-19 incidence and mortality by about 60 percent. This result is also in line with a contact-tracing study from South Korea, which identified adolescents aged 10 – 19 years as more likely to spread the virus than adults and children in household settings.” The Nature article cited a study in July published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, “Association Between Statewide School Closure and COVID-19 Incidence and Mortality in the US,” which found that “school closure was associated with a significant decline in both incidence of COVID-19 … and mortality.”#160;

Chicago Public Schools unveils reopening plan — The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) reopening plan unveiled last month by Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the CPS and public health officials will result in the needless deaths of more Illinois teachers, students and their family members if it is not opposed. Teachers must fight this completely unscientific plan and ensure that schools remain closed until vaccines are widely available and the pandemic is contained. The Democratic Party is taking the lead nationally on the back-to-work campaign, which depends upon the unsafe reopening of the schools. The trillions added to the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve to stave off the financial collapse that erupted in mid-March can only be repaid through the intense exploitation of the working class. The primary motive is clearly not concern for students’ education or well-being, as city officials have cynically claimed, but rather to provide the basis for getting parents back to work. The same motives are driving Lightfoot and the CPS, whose school reopening plan aims to bring back primarily those students under the age of 14, who cannot legally be left alone in Illinois without supervision, while leaving high school students to learn remotely. The current plan calls for students in Pre-K and those in moderate and intensive special education cluster programs to return to class January 11, while students in grades K-8 are scheduled to be back in school February 1. The drive to reopen Chicago schools coincides with the intensifying spread of the pandemic throughout the Midwest. Chicago hospitals are filled with COVID-19 patients, 279 of whom are in intensive-care units, of whom 159 are on ventilators. Chicago’s current positivity rate is 11.6 percent, and over the past week the city has been averaging 1,723 cases per day. The positivity rate and daily new infection figures have nearly tripled since Illinois Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker issued his July 24 executive order allowing school districts to make their own reopening decisions for the fall, regardless of the state’s own thresholds for phased reopening and despite the state having reverted to more strict mitigation measures since the order was issued. The state of Illinois was also recently discovered to be tracking workplace outbreaks but keeping this critical information hidden from the public.

Los Angeles school district plans full reopening as COVID-19 outbreaks mount in schools – Like nearly all other major metropolitan regions across the United States, coronavirus cases in Los Angeles have skyrocketed over the past month. There are now over 4,000 new cases per day in Los Angeles County, a quadrupling of cases over the same time period in October. The county is already on track to run out of hospital beds within the next two to three weeks. This reflects statewide trends, prompting California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom to announce Monday that the state is on the brink of more extensive stay-at-home orders. More than 75 percent of the state’s 7,533 ICU beds are now occupied and 51 of the state’s 58 counties are now in the “purple” tier, indicating widespread infections with test positivity rates higher than 8 percent. The remaining seven counties are mostly in the sparsely-populated Sierra Nevada mountain regions. Los Angeles County, which is the largest county in the US by population, issued the most stringent stay-at-home orders in the state Monday to deal with rising infections. Yet even these measures are wholly inadequate, allowing most businesses and workplaces to remain open but only at reduced capacities. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department also announced that even these provisions will not be enforced and instead rely on voluntary compliance. Prior to the latest upsurge in cases and hospitalizations, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) was poised to reopen schools for in-person learning in November despite the already immense risks at the time. The district had laid out a plan to regularly test students and had partnered with Microsoft to make use of its newly-created “Daily Pass” app to clear students for campus entry. While plans for a full reopening have not yet been implemented, athletic training has already begun at a small number of campuses, while many campuses have already partially reopened to a limited number of students for tutoring and for hybrid models of learning, producing a surge in coronavirus infections. The Los Angeles Times reported last week that 263, or nearly all of the partially reopened schools in Los Angeles County, had experienced coronavirus infections during the current school year, which began in September. In November, there was also a marked increase in infection outbreaks, defined as three or more cases within a 14-day period.

Sixteen-year-old Wisconsin high school student dies of COVID-19 – On November 25, the day before Thanksgiving, Isai Morocho, a 16-year-old junior at Madison East High School in Madison, Wisconsin, died suddenly from complications due to COVID-19.Morocho was described by the East High principal Brendan Kearney as “an excellent student who enjoyed theatre and had talked of becoming a chef and owning his own business” and “a caring friend and family member with a ready smile and great sense of humor.”In a heartbreaking interview with Madison365, Isai’s father, Milton Morocho, described his son as “young and strong … very healthy and strong.” He explained that his son’s death from the disease was totally unexpected. Milton Morocho, through tears, urged others not to be careless and think their loved ones are safe because of age or health.After coming down with nausea and diarrhea last month, Isai was brought to a clinic where he tested negative for COVID-19. Doctors originally dismissed the idea that it could be the novel coronavirus, as he was not showing the typical symptoms, and sent him home with the diagnosis of what they suspected was a stomach bug.After a few days of consistent illness, his parents took him back to the clinic, but because he had already tested negative before, doctors did not test him for again for coronavirus. Isai’s family was worried by his inability to keep even water down, but were reassured by the doctors who claimed his heart and lungs were working just fine, so it was highly unlikely that his illness was COVID-19.Although Milton Morocho revealed that he feared Isai may have COVID-19, he thought it was unlikely for someone of his age to be gravely ill from it. Furthermore, Isai had no trouble breathing, and he did not display any of the most common symptoms of COVID-19. In the toxicology report the family received after Isai’s death, they learned he had indeed died of a COVID-19 related pneumonia.

Cleveland-Heights University Heights School District threatens to halt health care benefits if teachers strike– On November 27, the Cleveland-Heights-University Heights School District (CH-UH) located just outside of Cleveland, Ohio announced it will stop the payment of health care benefits for the roughly 500 teachers and other school employees that are planning to strike on December 2. Teachers and other school employees have been working without a contract since June 30. The strike threat by CH-UH teachers takes place as the COVID-19 pandemic is raging out of control in Ohio and across the US amid a continued push by the ruling class to re-start in person learning. Ohio is experiencing a daily average of 7,817 new cases and 42 daily deaths. Elizabeth Kirby, superintendent of the Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District, said in a statement, “When public school teachers choose to go on strike, they are knowingly walking away from wages and benefits.” She also called on the leadership of the Cleveland Heights Teachers Union (CHTU) American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local 795 to inform members of the retaliatory measures planned by the school district. The district’s threat to end payments for health care to roughly 500 teachers and other school employees in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic is a brutal attempt to intimidate a growing wave of opposition by educators across the US and internationally to the homicidal school reopening policy of the ruling class. A similar attempt to intimidate school workers took place earlier this month, with a court granting a restraining order requested by local school officials against Dayton, Ohio school bus drivers, who organized a sickout over failed contract talks. The action by CH-UH and Dayton school officials, expose the bipartisan attack on public education. Both Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland Heights is located, and Dayton are dominated by the Democratic Party. Both areas have been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Ohio Department of Health, there have been 9,737 COVID-19 cases in Cuyahoga County and 4,344 cases in Montgomery County – where Dayton is located – between November 11 and November 24. On November 18 the Centerville schools outside of Dayton announced they would return to remote only learning after a surge of COVID-19 cases. The department of health has also labeled Cuyahoga a “Level 3 Public Emergency,” meaning the county has a “very high exposure and spread” of the virus. Montgomery County is a “Level 4 Public Emergency,” meaning it has “sever exposure and spread.”

Cleveland Heights Teachers Union calls off strike hours after picket lines are formed -On December 2, the Cleveland Heights Teachers Union (CHTU), American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local 795, abruptly called off a strike of roughly 500 teachers, counselors, nurses and other school employees just before the work stoppage was slated to begin. The strike had previously been called for school employees in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights (CH-UH) School District, located just outside of Cleveland, Ohio, concerning attempts by the district to impose a concessions contract with a substantial increase in healthcare premiums.On Wednesday morning, many educators in the district set up picket lines, only to be informed hours later that the strike had been cancelled.A joint statement issued by CH-UH Superintendent Elizabeth Kirby, school board President Jodi Sourini and CHTU president Karen Rego stated, “Due to negotiations [between the union and the district] going until 6:30 a.m., some Union members arrived to picket unaware that a tentative agreement was already near completion. We are happy that a strike was averted and students’ education will not be interrupted.”The statement provided no details about the tentative agreement, which must be ratified by the CHTU membership and approved by the Board of Education in order to become the official contract. The members of the CHTU have been working without a contract since June 30.The CHTU is doing everything in its power to ram through what is undoubtedly a sellout contract, with Rego telling The Plain Dealer that the union would hold three meetings “to educate our membership on the offer.” Rego stated that the meetings would take place on December 2 and 3, with the planned vote on the contract taking place on December 3. As of this writing, the outcome of the contract ratification vote has not been announced. While details of the new agreement have not been publicly released, a previous tentative agreement – which was voted down by the CHTU membership in late September – included a hike in healthcare premiums from 6 percent to 15 percent on top of new co-pays and deductibles. According to the CHTU, the increase in premiums would cost between $3,000 and $5,000 for many teachers.

Cancellations and postponements as disaster in college football continues – The college football season continues into its 14th week in the United States despite having proven to be an absolute disaster. Over 100 college games have been canceled so far this year due to players testing positive for COVID-19. The University of Michigan has canceled its game this upcoming weekend against the University of Maryland. The Detroit Free Press cited an anonymous source close to the team who said that the school has at least 12 positive cases inside its football program. However, the exact number is not certain because the University of Michigan, like many other football programs, is not making their number of positive tests publicly known. Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence (16) and his teammates hold up their helmets before an NCAA college football game against Pittsburgh Saturday, Nov. 28, 2020, in Clemson, S.C. (Ken Ruinard/Pool Photo via AP) Michigan Athletic Director Warde Manuel is hoping that the team can return their players to the roster before the upcoming game against their rival, Ohio State. The game between these two schools is one of the highest profile games in college football. Already having canceled two games this season due to COVID-19 outbreaks, Ohio State is one missed game away from being disqualified from the Big Ten championship game. Elsewhere last week, Vanderbilt University brought on Sarah Fuller, a player on the women’s soccer team, to be the football team’s kicker in its matchup against Missouri, which had previously been postponed in October. As was widely reported, Fuller became the first female to play a down in a major conference game. However, less reported was the fact that Fuller was brought onto the roster as an emergency replacement after the special teams unit was decimated by COVID-19-related absences. She is currently the only active kicker on the team’s roster available for this weekend’s game against Georgia. The unseriousness with which the college football establishment is taking the pandemic was demonstrated this week when Kirk Herbstreit, an ESPN college football analyst, baselessly accused Manuel of using COVID-19 as an excuse to avoid playing Ohio State, a team Michigan is predicted to perform poorly against. Manuel denied the claim calling it “ridiculous” and that he was “infuriated by the insinuation that Michigan would do anything other than play a football game.”

Young people speak out about the unprecedented collapse in their living conditions since the pandemic began – A majority of the United States’ young adult population has been forced to place its life on hold as the pandemic has erased the opportunity to move out of their parents’ homes or otherwise gain independence. This is the reality that has been exposed by a recent Pew Research Center report showing 52 percent of people between the ages of 18-29 are living at home with their parents. According to the study, this is the highest share of young people living at home since the end of the Great Depression in 1940. As shocking as it is, this number belies the actual social crisis that is hidden beneath it. The psychological impact of the chasm that has opened up between expectations for the future and the objective conditions facing millions of people is reflected by a national survey conducted by researchers from four universities and published this month by the COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding. The survey on mental health conditions for people in Generation Z, or young adults between 18 and 24, is a damning depiction of the mental and psychological destruction being wreaked on this generation. According to the research, about 47.3 percent of young people experienced some sort of depressive symptoms during the last few months. The most common causes for depression seen in this age group are closure of schools (51 percent), working from home (41 percent), and suffering a pay cut. This compares to only 3.4 percent of people in this age group in 2013-2014 reporting suicidal thoughts, anxiety or sleep disruption. “I’ve never been in a situation in my life when I was financially comfortable,” said Dasilva, whom has been forced to live with relatives along with her husband since spring. Prior to the pandemic, Dasilva and her husband were part of the performance industry. However, as live music venues, theatre and other creative arts have been upended, she admits that she has “no idea where I see myself in five years.” In addition to her financial situation, Michigan has once again become hard-hit by the coronavirus. The state ranks ranked eighth in the country with almost 390,000 COVID-19 cases and over 9,500 deaths since March.

Killing The Future- COVID Madness Will Lead To Half A Million Fewer US Births In 2021 —Research has concluded that the US will experience 500,000 fewer births in 2021, as couples choose not to have children because of the coronavirus fallout. The findings by the Brookings Institute were published last week in the Wall Street Journal, which noted that there will be “between 300,000 to 500,000 fewer births in the U.S. next year, compared with a drop of 44,172 last year.”The numbers equate to a 13% drop from the 3.8 million babies born in 2019.The “analysis, partly based on what happened following the 2007-2009 recession, is that weaker job prospects equate to fewer births,” the report further notes.“Women will have many fewer babies in the short term, and for some of them, a lower total number of children over their lifetimes,” the research, previously previewed in the Summer, noted.The US birthrate is already at its lowest level on record, and according to clinics, there has been a 50% jump in requests for birth control since the beginning of the pandemic, and a 40% increase in requests for Plan B.CDC research notes that the birth rate in the US has been below replacement level since 1971. It is now a problem across all major racial groups including Hispanics, non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, and non-Hispanic Asians. All have below replacement birth levels.A recent survey from the Guttmacher Institute discovered that 34% of women able to have babies in the US have made a decision to either delay having a child, or to just have fewer children because of COVID.Analysts say this will have a long and profound impact on the economy for many years to come, as the US could be falling into a so called ‘Fertility trap’ where there are fewer women around to have babies, resulting in smaller families, and low population growth reducing economic growth.

Measures of Chinese Economic Activity Signal Widening Recovery – WSJ – Gauges of China’s manufacturing and nonmanufacturing activity climbed to their highest levels in three and eight years, respectively, signaling a broadening recovery in the world’s second-largest economy nearly a year after the coronavirus began its spread. The official manufacturing purchasing managers index, a key measure of factory activity, rose to 52.1 in November from 51.4 in October, according to data released Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics. The reading is the highest since September 2017 and topped economists’ expectations for the index to edge up to 51.5 this month. Meanwhile, China’s nonmanufacturing PMI, which includes services and construction activity, rose in November to 56.4, its highest level since June 2012, from a previous reading of 56.2 in October, the statistics bureau said. China’s industrial sector has led the nation’s economic recovery since the second quarter of the year, and the official manufacturing PMI has remained above the 50 mark, which separates month-to-month activity expansion from contraction, since March. Now, with the coronavirus staying broadly under control within China’s borders, life is returning to normal in there, which has helped the other major segment of the economy – services – to catch up. “A lot of restaurants are already full with long lines at the door. People are consuming and factories are already at their full capacity,” said Zhu Chaoping, a Shanghai-based global market strategist for J.P. Morgan Asset Management. The reason, he says: “We see the pandemic is controlled.” Overall domestic consumption in China benefited as well in November from an annual shopping event, known as Singles Day, that broke its annual sales record this year after e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. extended the period of discounting. Monday’s manufacturing data showed strength beneath the headline number. The subindex measuring production increased to 54.7 from 53.9 in October while total new orders, the gauge’s main driver, rose to 53.9 after remaining unchanged for two months at 52.8. And the export-orders component increased to 51.5 in November, up from 51.0, remaining above the 50 mark for three straight months. Mr. Zhu said he sees room for China’s manufacturing strength to continue in the coming months, pointing to indicators suggesting that inventories are being depleted, which he said could lead to “a wave of restocking.” Mr. Zhu was also encouraged by a small uptick in the manufacturing PMI’s employment subindex, which points to factories hiring more employees to keep up with demand. China’s export machine, the main driver of the country’s economic recovery, has beaten economists’ gloomy expectations repeatedly this year. Outbound shipments from China rose 11.4% in October from a year earlier.

Multiple Sri Lankan prisoners dead after protest over COVID-19 response – At least eight Sri Lankan prisoners have been killed and more than 50 injured in clashes with guards amid protests over COVID-19 outbreaks in the country’s jails. Prisons across the country have reported thousands of coronavirus infections in recent months, Reuters reported on Monday. Inmates have held demonstrations calling for additional COVID-19 testing and quarantine facilities. A clash at the Mahara prison, near the city of Colombo, began on Sunday when inmates protested over prisoners who had tested positive for COVID-19 being transported there, according to Reuters. At least 59 prisoners were injured as the demonstrations escalated with prison guards. Two guards were critically injured, the Associated Press reported. Ajith Rohana, a senior police official, confirmed to Reuters that “most of the deaths and injuries appear to be due to gunshots.” A majority of the prisoners injured were in critical condition, Shelton Perera, director of the Ragama Hospital where inmates from the Mahara prison were being treated, told the outlet. Sri Lanka has reported 23,987 coronavirus cases and 118 deaths, according to an estimate from Johns Hopkins University.

Airline Says They Won’t Let People Fly If They’re Not Vaccinated – Qantas, the leading Australian airline, has announced that it will not allow passengers to fly on international flights unless they can show documents proving that they have had the COVID-19 vaccine. Alan Joyce, the airline’s chief executive, said that he believes a vaccine will become a requirement for other airlines as soon as one is rolled out. Qantas is currently operating at a much lower capacity than they typically do, as a majority of the airline’s international routes are suspended because the country has temporarily closed its borders to travelers during the pandemic.Most of these routes won’t be reopened until sometime in the middle of next year, and when they do, vaccine proof is expected to be required by most airlines, if not all of them, and if the airlines don’t require vaccinations for travel, governments might.In an interview with Channel 9 in Australia, Joyce said, “We are looking at changing our terms and conditions to say for international travelers, we will ask people to have a vaccination before they can get on the aircraft. I think that’s going to be a common thing talking to my colleagues in other airlines around the globe.” “What we’re looking at is how you can have a vaccination passport, an electronic version of it, that certifies what the vaccine is, is it acceptable to the country you are traveling to. There’s a lot of logistics, a lot of technology that will be needed to put in place to make this happen, but the airlines and the governments are working on this as we speak,” he added.Joyce said that he is confident that a successful coronavirus vaccine will be rolled out on the market very soon and allow borders to open up slowly throughout 2021.

Airlines and the conflict of vaccine visions – Covid-19 has been the single biggest hit to the bottom line of the airline industry in recent times. IATA, the International Air Transport Association, estimated last week that the pandemic would cost the sector as much $157bn, much worse than previously estimated.The collapse in passenger demand wasn’t just the result of government-mandated restrictions. Official curbs, quarantines and working-from-home mandates made it far more difficult to travel, but passenger numbers continued to suffer even after restrictions were loosened over the summer. This is because fears about the ease of catching the virus while in the air continued to linger.To raise confidence, airlines have implemented numerous risk-reduction measures, albeit within the usual cost-benefit parameters. Such measures (often also government-mandated) include mask-enforcement, socially distanced seating and in some cases (but not always!) passenger symptom-screening on entry to the aircraft. The big question facing the industry now is whether to follow such steps to their apparently logical conclusion and make vaccination mandatory.On that front, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce caused an uproar online last week when he declared airlines across the world should consider enforcing “no-vaccination no-fly“ policies to get the industry going again.He told Australia’s Channel 9: “We are looking at changing our terms and conditions to say for international travellers, we will ask people to have a vaccination before they can get on the aircraft.” He added that he believed such requirements would become commonplace. One might see Qantas as particularly well-placed to take the lead on such a strategy – not least because its brand is so closely associated with safety, But this bid to drum up passenger count by pacifying the overly fearful who might otherwise still avoid air travel instead went proverbially viral among another equally fearful demographic, the anti-vaxxer brigade. Unlike the Covid fearful, whose core anxiety arguably stems from the belief that nature can be more dangerous than the scientific institutions we have created to help us navigate those risks, anti-vaxxers’ fears originate from a distrust in the authorities we have positioned in such roles. Anti-vaxxer sentiment appears to be on the rise (alongside anti-lockdown sentiment too). Given the potential preponderance of the constrained group in society, are the likes of Qantas favouring one anxiety over the other? And in so doing, are they creating a negative feedback loop that inadvertently feeds the anti-vaxxer cause? Which leads to our final question: does demanding vaccine certificates actually make business sense?

The Scarring Effect of COVID-19: Youth Unemployment in Europe – Youth unemployment increased dramatically in several European Union countries during the Global Financial Crisis. It took several years before youth unemployment rates came down to, or fell below, pre-crisis levels. Even by 2019, this had not been achieved in all EU countries. The COVID-19 pandemic is now posing the same threat: younger generations are facing a harsher labour market than older generations. Figure 1 shows unemployment in EU countries for workers aged 15-24 and those aged 55-64. Youth unemployment increased during the second quarter of 2020, while unemployment remained almost unchanged compare to the year before for the older cohort (we did not find a significant difference when adjusting youth unemployment for gender; see Fig. 3 in the annex). Figure 2 shows changes in the EU employment and activity rate (a measure of success of an economy in engaging the population in the labour force) for the two cohorts. It shows data on those in employment and actively seeking work. For people aged over 55, the increase in the rate each year has been consistently high, with an overall increase in the employment rate of more than 15 percentage points over the last decade. The pandemic has changed this positive upward trend, but only to a limited degree so far. This is in stark contrast to the young cohort, for whom the increase in the employment rate was much more moderate pre-pandemic after the Global Financial Crisis, quickly turning substantially negative when COVID-19 hit. A glance at labour market slack data, or the shortfall between the work desired by workers and the volume of work available, does not provide any cause for optimism. Table 1 shows that young active jobseekers are two or three times less likely than those aged over 55 to be able to find a job. The professional experience of older people plays a crucial role in this disparity, which makes tackling unemployment among young people all the more pressing in times of rising unemployment. Moreover, Table 2 shows a substantial increase in the proportion of under-25s who are not even seeking work, even though they are available to work (unemployment figures only include those who are actively seeking work: the numbers in Table 2 include discouraged jobseekers and persons prevented from looking for work due to personal or family circumstances). Beyond the immediate negative effects of unemployment on individuals and public finances, youth unemployment has been shown to have longer-term effects. The literature on the ‘scarring effect’, the effect of being young and unemployed, shows there are irreversible consequences (see for example Arulampalam, 2001;Darvas and Wolff 2016). For instance, Gianni De Fraja and Sara Lemos found that “an additional month of unemployment between ages 18 and 20 permanently lowers earnings by around 1.2% per year”. Burgess (2003) found that unemployment early in an individual’s career increases the probability of subsequent unemployment.

Big Banks Grow Bigger and Smaller Banks Disappear, As Mergers Return to Crisis-Hit Eurozone — The ECB has a dream: to unleash a whirlwind of consolidation across the Eurozone’s banking system, out of which will arise a new breed of giant trans-European bank. The operations of these new mega-lenders will straddle the continent, thus helping to finally convert the Eurozone into a genuine single financial market. Their gargantuan size will allow them to finally compete with their mega-bank rivals from the U.S. and China. At least that’s the theory. As an added bonus, these mega-bank deals can serve as handy cover for stealth recapitalisations of failed or failing banks. This dream is not new, of course. One of the crowning goals of Europe’s half-baked Banking Union, initiated in 2014, was to enhance dramatically the concentration and consolidation of the banking sector. By 2018, there were 5,698 banks in the EU, 30% fewer than in 2008.The ECB could sharply accelerate this trend if it proceeds with its proposal to introduce a central bank digital currency (CBDC) at some undefined moment in the future. Some economists, including the authors of a new report published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, have warned that CBDCs could end up significantly reducing or even eliminating the raison d’etre of commercial banks, as the central bank “arises as a deposit monopolist, attracting all deposits away from the commercial banking sector.” Before that happens, the massive tsunami of defaulting loans and cascading losses that is fast approaching as debt holidays come to an end could provide an opportunity in the interim to thin the herd. A fresh round of bank failures and mergers will once again serve as a launchpad for further consolidation. As the ultimate decider of which struggling banks get to live or die and which lucky competitor gets to pick up the sanitised pieces afterwards, the ECB’s Supervisory Board will be in an ideal position to drive this type of consolidation forward. European Central Bank supervisor Andrea Enria said the coronavirus crisis would create room for mergers and acquisitions, both domestically and cross-border, as it pummels banks’ profitability. To get the ball rolling, the central bank has already lowered the bar for mergers, in the hope of encouraging banks to buy up rivals. As Reuters reported in July, merged entities won’t necessarily have to raise extra capital and will be allowed to use their own accounting models as well as any “badwill” – a paper profit that occurs when an asset is bought below its book value.

UK schools facing bankruptcy during pandemic – Thousands of UK schools are threatened with bankruptcy, staff redundancies and larger class sizes as they are forced to stay open and cope with the COVID-19 pandemic without extra funding. Despite educational settings being a major vector for the rising number of coronavirus infections – accounting for 45 percent of new cases – Boris Johnson’s Conservative government, backed by the trade unions and opposition Labour Party, insist that schools must remain open. This criminally reckless policy, underpinned by the “herd immunity” strategy, has contributed to a death toll of over 70,000. According to the National Association of Headteachers (NAHT), half the schools in the north west England town of Stockport anticipate going into deficit budgets this year, as they struggle with extra costs incurred by the pandemic. Many schools report their annual supply cover budget has been exhausted in just half a year due to staff absences, either from teachers contracting COVID-19 or quarantining at home after contact with positive cases at school. General secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), Geoff Barton, told the Guardian, “Most of a school’s budget is spent on staffing, so the inevitable conclusion of having less money is that they have to cut staffing. This increases class sizes and reduces the capacity to deliver pastoral care and provide additional classroom support for pupils who benefit from that. Unless the government acts, one of the legacies of Covid will be yet another funding crisis in education.” The Guardian reported that one secondary school in the north west incurred extra COVID-19 related expenses to the tune of Pound Sterling339,000. A term’s supply of hand sanitisers cost the unnamed school more than Pound Sterling10,000, bacterial anti-sprays accounted for Pound Sterling3,381, and Pound Sterling4,000 was spent on disposable paper towels. In theory, schools could apply for government reimbursement to cover some extra costs, but only up to July 2020. The school’s headteacher told the Guardian, “I have put in a claim to the Department for Education, but as yet have received diddly squat.” The head of Wales High School in Kiveton, South Yorkshire, Giuseppe Di’Iasio, worked over the summer holidays providing covered areas outside so the school’s year-groups would have room to separate into their “bubbles” for social distancing. “We spent our reserves to fund the building work, which has used up in advance all the capital fund money we will get over the next three years, so other improvements will be put on hold,” Di’Iasio told the Guardian . “It cost Pound Sterling6,000 to re-design the school and put in one-way systems and distancing, and we had to spend Pound Sterling19,000 on catering facilities so we could serve lunch at seven different venues. We had to spend Pound Sterling2,000 on webcams for staff at home to facilitate remote learning, toilet refurbishment cost Pound Sterling3,500, and hygiene costs have been Pound Sterling13,000. We’re looking at spending at least a third of a million pounds out of our Pound Sterling10m budget, but as 80% of our spending is on staff costs, it is actually a sixth of the Pound Sterling2m other spend.”

.

include(“/home/aleta/public_html/files/ad_openx.htm”); ?>