The number of small businesses nationwide has decreased by 29% since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Illnesses and deaths, government-imposed restrictions, and a necessary change in lifestyle because of the pandemic have affected how Americans live and do business.
Locally, our restaurants and retailers, hair salons and gyms, are hanging on.
Nationwide, the entire hospitality and leisure industry — hotels, cruise lines, casinos, movie theaters, restaurants, amusement parks, and bars — has been slammed.
October’s numbers show a 15% unemployment rate in the industry, as opposed to a national rate of 6.4%.
What these businesses all have in common are relatively low wages.
And while economists say the worst is over, it’s not a broad brush. Indeed, while high wage-earners are back in the swing, middle- and low-wage earners continue to suffer. Unemployment for middle wage-earners is 4.7%; low-wage earners, those who earn $27,000 and below, a staggering 19%.
WHAT WILL truly change the picture is widespread inoculation against COVID-19, expected by next summer.
To the unemployed, that might as well be never. They need food on the table tonight. Their rent is due now.
For too long Congressional Republicans have relied on steadily trending job growth and a robust stock market to be the answer. And while they point in the right direction, they do not answer the immediate need of the 20 million Americans who depend on federal unemployment benefits due to expire at the end of the year. Still today, more Americans are without work than in any other year since World War II.
Hence, the plea that Congress pass another round of economic aid.
Before them is a bipartisan proposal for $908 billion to pump up flailing businesses, extend unemployment benefits, provide aid to hospitals, food banks, individual states and the U.S. Postal Service.
The best way to keep the economy afloat is to keep its wheels turning, no matter how slowly.
Congress should pass the economic aid, posthaste.
— Susan Lynn
