Snapshot – The Trump Economic Depression

Covid is now out of control again as Trump and Republicans push for more re-openings and therefore more Corona Virus cases. Chart by the New York Times from Johns Hopkins University Data 28 July 2020

Here are  the latest Census Bureau estimates on the economy. It’s based on responses collected July 9 through July 14, from the Household Pulse Survey estimates during the COVID-19 pandemic. It seems the Census Bureau does other things than voter suppression under the Current Trump pandemic:

• 50.1% of American adults live in households which have experienced a loss in employment income
• 35.1% of American adults expect to experience a loss in employment income

• 10.8% of Americans lived in households where there was either sometimes or often not enough to eat in the previous 7 days
• 40.6% of adults had delayed getting medical care in the previous 4 weeks
• 25.3% of respondents reported having little interest or pleasure in doing things more than half the days/nearly every day last week
• 23.3% of respondents reported feeling down more than half the days/nearly every day last week
• 33.8% of respondents reported feeling anxious or nervous more than half the days/nearly every day last week
• On average, households spent $212.79 a week to buy food at supermarkets, grocery stores, online, and other places to be prepared and eaten at home
• 26.4% of adults either missed last month’s rent or mortgage payment, or had slight or no confidence that their household could make the next payment on time

Worth Quoting – Paul Krugman: “For the notion that unemployment happens because we make life too easy for the unemployed is a zombie idea — an idea that persists no matter how many times evidence should have killed it; it just keeps shambling along, eating politicians’ brains.”