{"id":135118,"date":"2021-04-24T06:09:50","date_gmt":"2021-04-24T06:09:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=190395"},"modified":"2021-04-24T06:09:50","modified_gmt":"2021-04-24T06:09:50","slug":"economic-collapse-continues-uninterrupted-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/04\/24\/economic-collapse-continues-uninterrupted-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Economic Collapse Continues Uninterrupted"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>To conceal the economic and social decline that continues to unfold at home and abroad, major newspapers are working overtime to promote happy economic news. Many headlines are irrational and out of touch. They make no sense. Desperation to convince everyone that all is well or all will soon be great is very high. The assault on economic science and coherence is intense. Working in concert, and contrary to the lived experience of millions of people, many newspapers are declaring miraculous \u201ceconomic growth rates\u201d for country after country. According to the rich and their media, numerous countries are experiencing or are on the cusp of experiencing very strong \u201ccome-backs\u201d or \u201ccomplete recoveries.\u201d Very high rates of annual economic growth, generally not found in any prior period, are being floated regularly. The numbers defy common sense.<\/p>\n

In reality, economic and social problems are getting worse nationally and internationally.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting back to the pre-Covid standard will take time,\u201d said<\/a> Carmen Reinhart, the World Bank\u2019s chief economist. \u201cThe aftermath of Covid isn\u2019t going to reverse for a lot of countries. Far from it.\u201d Even this recent statement is misleading because it implies that pre-Covid economic conditions were somehow good or acceptable when things have actually been going downhill for decades. Most economies never really \u201crecovered\u201d from the economic collapse of 2008. Most countries are still running on gas fumes while poverty, unemployment, under-employment, inequality, debt, food insecurity, generalized anxiety, and other problems keep worsening. And today, with millions of people fully vaccinated and trillions of phantom dollars, euros, and yen printed by the world\u2019s central banks, there is still no real and sustained stability, prosperity, security, or harmony. People everywhere are still anxious about the future. Pious statements from world leaders about \u201cfixing\u201d capitalism have done nothing to reverse the global economic decline that started years ago and was intensified by the \u201cCOVID Pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the U.S. alone, in real numbers, about 3-4 million people a month have been laid off for 13 consecutive months. At no other time in U.S. history has such a calamity on this scale happened. This has \u201cimproved\u201d slightly recently but the number of people being laid off every month remains extremely high and troubling. In New York State<\/a>, for example:<\/p>\n

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the statewide [official] unemployment rate remains the second highest in the country at just under 9%. One year after the start of the pandemic and the recession it caused, most<\/em> of the jobs New York lost still have not come back<\/em>. (emphasis added, April 2021).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In addition, nationally the number of long-term unemployed remains high<\/a> and the labor force participation rate remains low<\/a>. And most new jobs that are \u201ccreated\u201d are not high-paying jobs with good benefits and security. The so-called \u201cGig Economy\u201d has beleaguered millions.<\/p>\n

Some groups have been more adversely affected than others. In April 2021, U.S. News & World Report<\/em> conveyed that:<\/p>\n

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In February 2020, right before the coronavirus was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, Black women had an employment to population ratio of 60.8%; that now stands at 54.8%, a drop of 6 percentage points.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The obsolete U.S. economic system has discarded more than half a million black women from the labor force in the past year.<\/p>\n

In December 2019, around the time the \u201cCOVID Pandemic\u201d began to emerge, Brookings<\/em> reported<\/a> that:<\/p>\n

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An estimated 53 million people\u201444 percent of all U.S. workers ages 18\u201364\u2014are low-wage workers. That\u2019s more than twice the number of people in the 10 most populous U.S. cities combined. Their median hourly wage is $10.22, and their median annual earnings are $17,950. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Federal Reserve<\/em> reports<\/a> that 37 percent of Americans in 2019 did not have $400 to cover an unanticipated emergency. In Louisiana<\/a> alone, 1 out of 5 families today are living at the poverty level.  Sadly, \u201c60% of Americans will live below the official poverty line<\/a> for at least one year of their lives.\u201d While American billionaires<\/a> became $1.3 trillion richer, about 8 million Americans joined the ranks of the poor during the \u201cCOVID Pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

And more inflation will make things worse for more people. A March 2021 headline from NBC News<\/em> reads<\/a>: \u201cThe price of food and gas is creeping higher \u2014 and will stay that way for a while.\u201d  ABC News<\/em> goes further in April 2021 and says<\/a> that \u201cthe post-pandemic economy will include higher prices, worse service, longer delays.\u201d<\/p>\n

Homelessness in the U.S. is also increasing:<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVID-driven loss of jobs and employment income will cause the number of homeless workers to increase each year through 2023. Without large-scale, government employment programs the Pandemic Recession is projected<\/a> to cause twice as much<\/em> homelessness as the 2008 Great Recession. Over the next four years the current Pandemic Recession is projected to cause chronic homelessness <\/em>to increase 49 percent in the United States, 68 percent in California and 86 percent in Los Angeles County. [The homeless include the] homeless on the streets, shelter residents and couch surfers. (emphasis added, January 11, 2021)<\/p>\n

Perhaps ironically, just \u201cTwo blocks from the Federal Reserve, a growing encampment of the homeless<\/a> grips the economy\u2019s most powerful person [Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell].\u201d<\/p>\n

Officially, about four million businesses, including more than 110,000 restaurants, have permanently closed<\/a> in the U.S. over the past 14 months.  In April 2021 Business Insider<\/em> stated<\/a> that, \u201croughly 80,000 stores are doomed to close in the next 5 years as the retail apocalypse continues to rip through America.\u201d  The real figure is likely higher.<\/p>\n

Bankruptcies<\/a> have also risen in some sectors. For example, bankruptcies by North American oil producers \u201crose to the highest first-quarter level since 2016.\u201d<\/p>\n

In March 2021 the Economic Policy Institute<\/em> reported<\/a> that \u201cmore than 25 million workers are directly harmed by the COVID labor market.\u201d Anecdotal evidence suggests that there are more than 100 applicants for each job opening in some sectors.<\/p>\n

Given the depth and breadth of the economic collapse in the U.S., it is no surprise that \u201c1 in 6 Americans went into therapy<\/a> for the first time in 2020.\u201d The number of people affected by depression, anxiety, addiction, and suicide worldwide as a direct result of the long depression is very high. These harsh facts and realities are also linked to more violence, killings, protests, demonstrations, social unrest, and riots worldwide.<\/p>\n

In terms of physical health<\/a>, \u201cSixty-one percent of U.S. adults report undesired weight changes since the COVID-19 pandemic began.\u201d This will only exacerbate the diabetes pandemic that has been ravaging more countries every year.<\/p>\n

On another front, the Pew Research Center<\/em> informs us<\/a> that, as a result of the economic collapse that has unfolded over the past year, \u201cA majority of young adults in the U.S. live with their parents for the first time since the Great Depression.\u201d   And it does not help that student debt<\/a> now exceeds $1.7 trillion and is still climbing rapidly. <\/p>\n

Millions of college faculty have also suffered greatly over the past year. A recent survey<\/a> by the American Association of University Professors<\/em> (AAUP) found that:<\/p>\n

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real wages for full-time faculty decreased for the first time since the Great Recession[in 2008], and average wage growth for all ranks of full-time faculty was the lowest since the AAUP began tracking annual wage growth in 1972. After adjusting for inflation, real wages decreased at over two-thirds of colleges and universities. The number of full-time faculty decreased at over half of institutions. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This does not account for the thousands of higher education adjuncts (part-time faculty) and staff that lost their jobs permanently.<\/p>\n

In April 2021, the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities<\/em> stated<\/a> that, \u201cmillions of people are still without their pre-pandemic income sources and are borrowing to get by.\u201d Specifically:<\/p>\n