For months now, American workers, families and small businesses have been saying they can't keep up their socially distanced lives for much longer. We've now arrived at "much longer" — and the pandemic isn't going away anytime soon.
The relief policies and stopgap measures that we cobbled together to get us through the toughest weeks worked for a while, but they're starting to crumble just as cases are spiking in the majority of states.
Next week, the extra $600 per week in expanded unemployment benefits will expire. And there's no indication that Congress has reached a consensus on extending this assistance or providing anything in its place.
- But nearly
half of the U.S. population is still jobless, and millions will remain
jobless for the foreseeable future. There are 14 million more unemployed
people than there are jobs, per the Economic Policy Institute.
- Nearly a third of Americans missed a housing payment in July — and that was with
the additional $600. Plus, most Americans have already spent the
stimulus checks they received at the beginning of the pandemic.
- "We
should be very concerned about what’s going to happen in August and
beyond" — starting with a spike in evictions, Mathieu Despard, who leads
the Social Policy Institute at the Washington University in St. Louis said.
Expect more furloughs and layoffs as more small businesses are pushed off the pandemic cliff.
- By economists' estimates, more than 100,000 small businesses have permanently closed since the pandemic began.
- For those that are hanging on, loans from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) have not been enough,
and the back and forth between re-opening and then closing again as
states deal with new case waves has been devastating. In fact, rates of
closure have started increasing, the New York Times reports, citing Yelp data.
- The
big firms aren't immune either. Just last week, behemoths like United
Airlines, Wells Fargo, Walgreens and Levi's either cut jobs or told
workers their jobs were at risk.
And the question of whether schools will reopen looms.
- Since
schools sent kids home in March, and most summer camps didn't open
their doors for the summer, working parents have been dealing with a
child care crisis — attempting to do their jobs, care for their kids and
homeschool all at once — and hoping that the stress will be temporary.
- The situation is more dire for low-income families with kids who rely on school lunches or for single parents who are juggling work and parenting without any help.
- Now the public heath crisis hasn't abated,
and school districts are running out of time to figure out what the fall
will look like. Some, starting with Los Angeles, have already decided to go online.
The bottom line:
"It’s the uncertainty that is anxiety-inducing," says Despard. "If you give people a time horizon and say, 'Look you have to get through these next 8 weeks of extreme shutdown,' they'll do it. Now it’s like, 'How much longer?'"