The Economy

The Economic Depression Of 2020 Is Becoming An Endless Nightmare For Millions Of Americans

You may have noticed that a lot of people get offended by what I write.  It is not something that I am purposely setting out to do, and I actually endeavor to get along with everyone as much as I can.  But it is undeniable that my articles about our ongoing economic collapse directly contradict a lot of the narratives that are constantly being pushed by the mainstream media and many of our political, business and religious leaders.  There are so many people out there that want to believe that the future is going to be exceedingly bright, and even though 2020 has been a horrific economic catastrophe so far, there are a lot of optimists that believe that it is just a temporary blip on the road to tremendous prosperity.

It would actually be wonderful if they were right.

But they aren’t.

At this point, everyone should be able to clearly see that we have entered a new economic depression.  And I wish that I could tell you that a “recovery” was right around the corner, but I can’t.

On Thursday, we got yet another sign that this downturn is here for the long haul.  According to the Labor Department, approximately 1.2 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week…

Four months after the COVID-19 pandemic largely shut down the economy and left millions of Americans out of work, employers continue to lay off workers at a historic pace.

About 1.2 million people last week filed initial applications for unemployment insurance – a rough measure of layoffs – the Labor Department said Thursday, down substantially from 1.4 million the previous week and the lowest level since March.

Initially, I thought that this was good news.

1.2 million is still a catastrophic number, but at least it appeared to be an improvement over last week’s level of 1.4 million.

Unfortunately, there is more to the story.

As Wolf Richter has pointed out, when you look at the unadjusted numbers and you include all state and federal programs, the number of continuing unemployment claims increased by a whopping 1.3 million last week…

The total number of people who continued to claim unemployment insurance under all state and federal unemployment programs jumped by 1.3 million from the prior week to 32.12 million (not seasonally adjusted), the Department of Labor reported this morning. It was the second highest ever.

That would seem to indicate that unemployment is dramatically surging, and that is really bad news for an economy that is already deeply suffering.

Overall, more than 55 million Americans have now filed initial claims for unemployment benefits over the past 20 weeks.  That is a number that should be almost theoretically impossible, but this is actually happening.

Prior to this year, the all-time record for new unemployment claims in a single week was just 695,000, and now we have been above a million for 20 consecutive weeks.

Up until recently, a weekly $600 unemployment supplement from the federal government had been helping tens of millions of unemployed Americans pay their bills, but now that supplement has expired and Congress has not yet agreed to another one.

As a result, the economic suffering of countless American families just got a whole lot deeper…

An unemployed makeup artist with two toddlers and a disabled husband needs help with food and rent. A hotel manager says his unemployment has deepened his anxiety and kept him awake at night. A dental hygienist, pregnant with her second child, is struggling to afford diapers and formula.

Around the country, across industries and occupations, millions of Americans thrown out of work because of the coronavirus are straining to afford the basics now that an extra $600 a week in federal unemployment benefits has expired.

Over the past couple of months, I have been hearing from a lot of people that believe that all of those unemployed workers should just get off their couches and go get new jobs.

I wish that it was that easy.  Good jobs are becoming increasingly scarce, and the competition for those jobs is only going to get more fierce because a “second wave of layoffs” has now begun.  The following comes from Fox Business…

A second wave of layoffs is hitting American workers during a surge in coronavirus cases nationwide, and a Congressional stalemate over stimulus relief, according to a new survey by Cornell University and RIWI.

The researchers conducted the survey between July 23 and Aug. 1, and found that 31% of workers who had been placed back on payrolls after initially being laid off have now been laid off for a second time. Additionally, 26% of rehired workers say they’ve been told that they may be laid off again.

I know that I included that quote in yesterday’s article, but I wanted to share it again because it is so important for people to understand what is really going on out there.

Millions of jobs that were lost in the first wave of layoffs are never coming back, and now millions of jobs that actually came back are being lost again.

In other words, instead of witnessing a “recovery” we are witnessing an “unraveling”.

I know that a lot of people don’t like when I talk like this.

But I am not here to make you feel good.  I am here to tell you the truth.

We are in the midst of an economic nightmare, and even Bloomberg is admitting that conditions in the U.S. are becoming a lot more miserable…

The US is projected to undergo the biggest increase in economic misery across 60 countries as the nation grapples with heightened unemployment and fresh coronavirus hotspots.

Bloomberg’s Misery Index, which ranks major economies by inflation and unemployment expectations, shows the country sinking to rank 25 from rank 50 in 2020. Venezuela, Argentina, and South Africa held their spots as the world’s most miserable economies.

And every day more businesses are shutting down, more workers are being laid off and more dreams are being shattered.

The consequences of literally decades of incredibly foolish decisions are catching up with our nation, and this economic depression will ultimately get a whole lot worse.

So instead of sticking your head in the sand and hanging on to the delusion that everything is going to be just fine somehow, I would very much encourage you to work very hard to get prepared for the nightmarish years that are ahead of us.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  By purchasing the book you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

We Are Experiencing Economic Devastation On A Scale That America Has Never Seen Before

For a very long time we have been warned that a U.S. economic collapse was inevitably coming, and now it is here.  Fear of COVID-19 and unprecedented civil unrest in our major cities have combined to plunge us into a historic economic downturn, and nobody is exactly sure what is going to happen next.  On Thursday, we learned that U.S. GDP was down 32.9 percent on an annualized basis last quarter.  That officially makes last quarter the worst quarter in all of U.S. history, and many people believe that this new economic depression is just getting started.  But of course not all areas of the country are being affected equally.  According to USA Today, states such as Hawaii, Nevada, Michigan and New York were hit particularly hard last quarter…

Every state was walloped last quarter, though ones that rely heavily on travel and tourism, such as Hawaii and Nevada, were hit hardest by the downturn, according to employment figures analyzed by economist Adam Kamins of Moody’s Analytics. Michigan, the heart of the nation’s auto industry, was slammed as consumers put off car purchases. And densely populated Northeast states struck by the most severe virus outbreaks – like New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts – absorbed among the heaviest economic losses as governors shut down earlier and residents stayed home.

Originally, the mainstream media was telling us that the U.S. economy would come surging back to life during the third quarter, but we continue to get more signs that indicate that the economy is starting to slow down again.

For example, the Labor Department just released some new numbers that were more than just a little bit startling.  If you can believe it, another 1.434 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week.  That was an increase over last week’s revised number, and it represents the second week in a row that initial claims have risen.

Overall, new claims for unemployment benefits have now been above one million for 19 weeks in a row.

Personally, I don’t know how this is even possible.  Prior to this year, the all-time record for a single week was just 695,000.  The numbers that we have been getting week after week are so obscene that they are truly difficult to believe.

Overall, a grand total of more than 54 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits during the last 19 weeks.

But there were only 152 million Americans working when employment peaked back in February.  So how is it possible that 54 million workers have filed initial claims for unemployment benefits so far this year?

Have things really gotten that bad?

Maybe they have.  Bloomberg just reported on a recent Census Bureau survey that found that 30 million Americans claim that they did not have enough food to eat during the week that ended on July 21st…

Food insecurity for U.S. households last week reached its highest reported level since the Census Bureau started tracking the data in May, with almost 30 million Americans reporting that they’d not had enough to eat at some point in the seven days through July 21.

In the bureau’s weekly Household Pulse Survey, roughly 23.9 million of 249 million respondents indicated they had “sometimes not enough to eat” for the week ended July 21, while about 5.42 million indicated they had “often not enough to eat.”

Once again, those numbers are so shocking that they are hard for me to believe.

Are there really tens of millions of Americans that cannot afford three meals a day right now?

Maybe there are, but it is still difficult to grasp the fact that we have fallen so far in such a short period of time.

Meanwhile, we just got more bad news about the restaurant industry.  According to the National Restaurant Association, at least 15 percent of all restaurants in the entire country will be shutting down.  The following comes from Zero Hedge…

The National Restaurant Association has determined that at least 15% of all restaurants will close. This number could be a lot higher at the end of the year as Goldman Sachs reports the economic recovery is now reversing.

Small restaurant operators, who fear a double-dip recession, have now resorted to liquidating their eateries on Facebook Marketplace.

A simple search of “restaurant” on Facebook Marketplace, within 80 miles of Trenton, New Jersey, comes up with dozens and dozens and dozens of mom and pop eateries that are trying to get out of the game.

Actually, if we only lose 15 percent of our restaurants we should hold a massive celebration, because that will be a rip-roaring victory.

As fear of COVID-19 stretches on month after month, and as civil unrest becomes even worse, it will become increasingly difficult for restaurants, bars, movie theaters and other establishments where the public gathers to survive.

In the end, I think that we are going to lose hundreds of thousands of restaurants, and it deeply grieves me to say that.

Of course every industry is going to be devastated by this new economic depression, and even the biggest names are going to get hit really hard.

In fact, you know that things are starting to get really bad when even Walmart starts laying off workers…

Walmart Inc. is joining the ranks of Macy’s and L Brands in eliminating hundreds of corporate jobs in order to cut costs.

Employees in the mega-retailer’s store planning, logistics, and real estate units have reportedly received pink slips, reported Bloomberg Thursday

If Walmart executives truly believed that the U.S. economy was going to be returning to normal, they would not have made such a move.

But at this point it should be clear to everyone that there isn’t going to be a return to normal.

Very challenging times are on the horizon, and what we have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

More big corporations are going to go bankrupt, more businesses are going to fail, more workers are going to be laid off, and the financial dominoes are going to start to fall at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking.

So many of the things that myself and so many other economic writers have been warning about are starting to happen.

A great unraveling has begun, and it is imperative for all of us to find a way to survive the severe economic pain that is ahead of us.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  By purchasing the book you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

Economic Nightmare: Nearly 50 Percent Of All The Jobs Lost During The COVID-19 Pandemic “May Be Gone Permanently”

When millions of Americans were losing their jobs at the beginning of this pandemic, we were told not to worry because the lockdowns were just temporary and virtually all of those workers would be going back to their old jobs once the lockdowns ended.  Well, now we are finding out that was not even close to true.  Over the last 18 weeks, more than 52 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits, and a very large percentage of them are dealing with a permanent job loss.  In fact, one brand new survey discovered that 47 percent of all unemployed workers now believe that their “job loss is likely to be permanent”.  The following comes from a USA Today article entitled “Almost half of all jobs lost during pandemic may be gone permanently”…

In April, 78% of those in households experiencing job loss felt that that situation would be temporarily. But now, 47% think that job loss is likely to be permanent, according to The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

What that number tells us is that we are facing the worst employment crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

All of those permanently unemployed workers are eventually going to need new jobs, but meanwhile the U.S. economy as a whole is in a free fall that is absolutely stunning.  On Thursday, we are scheduled to get the GDP number for the second quarter, and everyone is expecting that it will be really bad…

Data due Thursday are forecast to show U.S. gross domestic product plummeted an annualized 34.8% in the second quarter, the most in records dating back to the 1940s, after the spread of Covid-19 prompted Americans to stay home and states to order widespread lockdowns.

This downturn has been particularly hard on small businesses.  Just check out these numbers…

• Yelp reported 71,500 businesses that were listed on their site have closed for good since March 1.

• 80% of independent restaurants aren’t sure they’ll survive the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Nearly half of all small-business members of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce lost 100% of their sales or closed down completely.

What a nightmare.

But the third quarter was when the U.S. economy was supposed to come roaring back to life.

We were told that it would be the greatest economic comeback in our history, but instead the numbers are telling us that the economy is actually starting to slow down once again.

In fact, U.S. consumer confidence in July is much lower than it was in June…

U.S. CONSUMER confidence fell in July to a reading of 92.6 as coronavirus cases surged around the country, shuttering some bars and other businesses and raising concerns about the future of the economy.

The Conference Board reported Tuesday that the index fell in July from a reading of 98.3 in June. The drop is more significant than economists predicted, and is due mainly to a decrease in consumers’ economic expectations for the short-term future.

In addition, we just witnessed the largest decline in wholesale inventories since the peak of the last financial crisis…

June was supposed to be the month of second-derivative beats in economic data, reaffirming the manic bid in stocks. For Wholesale Inventories it was not.

Against expectations of a rebound from a 1.2% drop in May to a 0.5% drop in June, wholesale inventories actually tumbled 2.0% MoM, the worst since the peak of the great financial crisis…

So it doesn’t look like any sort of a “recovery” is happening.

Instead, it appears that we are sliding into the next chapter of this new economic depression.

In June, 19 percent of all U.S. small businesses were closed, but now that number is up to 24.5 percent.

That certainly isn’t progress.

With each passing day, more companies are announcing layoffs.  And every worker that gets laid off is another American that doesn’t have a paycheck to spend.  During the last recession, millions of Americans slid out of the middle class, and we are watching it happen again.

Our elected leaders in Washington are desperate to do something about this, and almost all of them seem to agree that more socialist programs are the answer.  A fifth “stimulus bill” is being put together, and the Urban Institute is warning that if Congress does not hurry we could see the poverty rate in this country rise substantially…

Millions more Americans will be thrown into poverty if Congress fails to enact three policies meant to help families get through economic hardships related to the pandemic, according to a new study by the Urban Institute.

The report finds that the poverty rate for the last five months of 2020 will rise to 11.9% if expanded unemployment-insurance benefits, a second round of stimulus checks, and increased SNAP allotments are not approved, a significant increase over the projected annual rate of 8.9%.

If the Urban Institute thinks that an 11.9 percent poverty rate is bad, just wait until they see what things will be like in this country a few years from now.

Our entire system is in the process of melting down, but it will take some time for the drama that we are watching to fully play out.  Our leaders in Washington and the bureaucrats over at the Federal Reserve will keep flooding the system with money in a misguided attempt to fix things, and this will result in exceedingly painful inflation.

The cost of everything (including essentials such as food) will be going way up, and that means that your money will increasingly become less and less valuable.

If you could print your way to prosperity, Venezuela and Zimbabwe would be the wealthiest nations on the entire planet today.

At this point, almost everyone in Venezuela is a “millionaire”, but almost everyone is also living in extreme poverty.

History has shown that wildly printing money doesn’t work, but the U.S. is going down the exact same path, and it isn’t going to be pretty.

Even though things are quite crazy out there right now, this is our window of opportunity to get prepared for the troubled times that are ahead, because things are not going to be getting any easier from here on out.

*It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.*

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  By purchasing the book you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

The Price Of Gold And The Price Of Silver Are Both Soaring Into The Stratosphere As The Global Economy Collapses

For years, some of the brightest minds in the precious metals industry warned that the price of gold and the price of silver would both rise dramatically once the global economy inevitably collapsed, and it turns out that they were right on target.  What we have been witnessing over the last several weeks has been nothing short of stunning, and many experts believe that this is just the beginning.  But I was actually going to write about something completely different today.  A major skirmish between Israel and Hezbollah along the Lebanese border put the entire region on edge for a few hours, but things appear to have cooled off for the moment.  So it doesn’t look like a huge regional war in the Middle East will start today, but as I discuss in my brand new book, it is just a matter of time before a massive conflict does erupt and I will be watching developments very closely.

There are so many elements of “the perfect storm” that is now upon us, and global events are happening so fast that it is hard to keep up with them all.  But one thing that you can pretty much count on is that almost every piece of bad news is going to be good news for the price of gold and for the price of silver.

All over the world, national governments have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by recklessly spending money, and central banks have responded by engaging in a money creation spree that is unlike anything we have ever seen before.

As currencies all over the globe are being devalued at a staggering rate, it was inevitable that we would see gold and silver rise, and that is exactly what we have witnessed.  In fact, on Monday the price of gold set a brand new record high…

Gold touched record prices as worries over issues such as the coronavirus pandemic as well as U.S.-China tensions weighed on investor sentiment.

Spot gold traded up 1.9% at about $1,938.11 per ounce after earlier trading as high as $1,943.9275 per ounce. Those levels eclipsed the previous record high price set in September 2011.

On a percentage basis, the price of silver is actually moving even faster than the price of gold, and on Monday we witnessed a move which surprised just about everyone…

At the close of trading today, the silver price surged by nearly $2. According to Kitco.com, silver closed at $24.72, up $1.91 for the day. I can’t remember the last time silver jumped nearly $2 in one day. Of course, last Tuesday and Wednesday were big days for silver, but not $2.

What is interesting about the last few minutes of trading, silver closed right at the highs. So, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens in early Asian trading if silver BREAKS above its new short-term resistance level.

As I write this article, the price of silver has now risen above 26 dollars an ounce, and overall it is up more than 90 percent since the middle of March…

Since mid-March, the price of silver is up more than 90%, making it one of the top-performing asset classes since the bear market low earlier this year. It’s also up more than 22% just during the month of July alone.

The rapid decline in the dollar, negative real yields, ballooning deficits and additional government stimulus likely on the way are all fueling the current precious metals rally. All of these factors support a further rally in commodities, but it’s also becoming one of the more crowded trades in the financial markets.

Meanwhile, the U.S. economy continues to deteriorate.  For a while, many in the mainstream media were touting the possibility of a “V-shaped recovery”, but now they are openly admitting that this is not going to happen.  For example, the following comes from a CBS News story that was just posted…

The economic recovery that began in May is sputtering. Recent data show Americans cutting their spending and many businesses re-closing their doors as the number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. crosses 4 million, raising concerns about another slowdown in growth.

“The foundations to this recovery are cracking under the weight of a mismanaged health crisis,” Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, told investors in a report.

What this means is that even more businesses are going to fail and even more workers are going to get laid off.

In fact, MGM Resorts and other large casino operators in the Las Vegas area just sent out legal notices indicating that mass firings are coming…

Shares of MGM Resorts were falling over 6% in afternoon trading Monday after Las Vegas casinos notified their staff that if they weren’t recalled from furlough by August 31, they would subsequently be fired.

Major employers are required under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act) to notify their workers when there are expected to be mass firings. MGM Resorts, Wynn Resorts, Tropicana and other casino operators sent out such notifications.

It is being reported that a “large majority” of MGM employees in the entertainment and sports division will lose their positions, and considering the fact that Las Vegas already has one of the highest unemployment rates in the entire nation it will certainly not be easy for them to find new jobs.

Elsewhere, United Airlines has announced that it may have to lay off as many as 36,000 workers.  That represents almost half of the U.S. workforce for the airline, and other major airlines are expected to make similar cuts.

Without jobs, a lot of unemployed workers are simply not going to be able to pay their bills, and CNBC is telling us that the U.S. may soon be facing “an unprecedented eviction crisis”…

An unprecedented eviction crisis will soon hit the U.S.

On Friday, the federal moratorium on evictions in properties with federally backed mortgages and for tenants who receive government-assisted housing expired. The Urban Institute estimated that provision covered nearly 30% of the country’s rental units.

Many states had instituted their own eviction moratoriums, but most of those are expiring as well.

Unless new moratoriums are established, millions of Americans will soon be facing eviction, and according to one estimate a grand total of 40 million Americans could potentially be evicted over the course of this entire pandemic…

The proceedings have resumed in more than 30 states.The moratorium in Hawaii and Illinois end this week, and in August, evictions will pick up in New York and Nevada.

By one estimate, some 40 million Americans could be evicted during the public health crisis.

Just think about that.

What is this country going to look like if 40 million people are thrown out into the street?

As I have always warned, this economic downturn is going to make the last recession look like a Sunday picnic.  The economic suffering is going to be off the charts, and at this point there isn’t too much that can be done to stop it.

Yes, Congress will pass more “stimulus bills” and the Federal Reserve will continue to create money at a staggering pace.

Those measures will only provide temporary relief for the real economy, but they will also be music to the ears of every gold and silver investor.

Things have gotten crazy, and they are only going to get crazier.  Hold on tight, because the rest of 2020 is definitely going to be quite “interesting”.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

When It Comes To Economic Suffering, Some Parts Of The U.S. Are Feeling It Far More Than Others

2020 has been a very tough year for the U.S. as a whole, but some portions of the country have been hit much harder than others.  For example, if you live in a rural area that hasn’t seen any civil unrest and that hasn’t been hit very hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, the way that you are living your life now may seem nearly unchanged from the way you were living your life in 2019.  But if you live in an urban area that has experienced endless protests and rioting and that has seen COVID-19 sweep through local neighborhoods like wildfire, your life in 2020 may look radically different from the way it looked in 2019.  Unfortunately, conditions in our largest cities are not likely to improve dramatically any time soon.

But many people that live in rural communities are feeling pretty good about things right now.  Even though more than 52 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits over the last 18 weeks, the official unemployment rate in many rural counties is still in the single digits.

I know that may be difficult to believe, but that is what the numbers tell us.

Sadly, in many of our largest cities it is a completely different story.  New York City was one of the early epicenters of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, and many of us will never forget watching video footage of the looting that took place in the heart of Manhattan earlier this year.  As a result of all of this chaos, the unemployment rate in the state as a whole is nearly twice the national average…

New York’s unemployment rate rose to 20.4% last month, according to state-level data issued Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that detailed figures for some large metro areas. That’s up from 18.3% in May and 15% in April.

We see a very similar story when we look at the city of Los Angeles.

Thanks to COVID-19 and endless civil unrest, the official unemployment rate in the city is hovering near 20 percent…

Los Angeles, the second-largest U.S. city, has seen a similar level of joblessness.

Its unemployment rate recovered slightly in June but remains startlingly high — at 19.5%, versus 20.6% in May, according to data published Friday by California’s Employment Development Department.

Unfortunately, it appears that the COVID-19 pandemic and the violence in our major cities are both going to be with us for the foreseeable future.

Some people think that the civil unrest will disappear if Joe Biden wins in November, but I do not believe that is the case.  Nearly all of the major cities where the violence is happening are controlled by radical Democrats, and those radical Democrats have been completely unable to control the riots.  To the protesters, Republicans and Democrats are both two sides of the same coin and are both responsible for the injustices in our society, and they are not going to give up on their goals just because a moderate Democrat like Joe Biden wins the election.

At this point, millions upon millions of Americans are sticking closer to home these days because of COVID-19 and all the unrest, and this has been particularly devastating for the leisure and hospitality industries…

The unemployment rate in the leisure and hospitality industries, including restaurants, soared from 5.7% in February to 39.3% in April, and in June was still at an unprecedented 28.9%. By comparison, the overall unemployment rate is 11.1%, and no other industry comes close to restaurants’ level.

The restaurant industry employed nearly 9.2 million people in June, almost 3 million more than in April but still 25% below where it was in February. Anecdotally, though, restaurant workers—even those who’ve spent decades in the industry—say they’re looking to get out. The line of work that had been stable, geographically flexible, reliable and largely safe for generations is no more, they say.

As I discussed the other day, we have already lost thousands upon thousands of small and independent restaurants, and this “restaurant apocalypse” is only going to get worse with each passing month.

Moving forward, some cities may never be the same again.  In Las Vegas, the official unemployment rate recently hit 29 percent, and everyone agrees that tourism will never recover until the pandemic ends.

If this pandemic stretches on for several years, many of those unemployed workers will be forced to abandon the city entirely in order to find work elsewhere.

Sadly, competition for the few good jobs that are available will become increasingly fierce, and this will result in millions of Americans falling out of the middle class.

And we are starting to see some numbers that indicate that this process is already moving along very quickly.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, “24 million Americans say they have little to no chance of being able to pay next month’s rent”.

Just think about that.

We never saw anything like this during the last recession, and the Census Bureau says that things are particular dire for Black and Hispanic renters…

This month, nearly 28% of Black renters say they haven’t paid last month’s rent, and about 46% say they have slight or no confidence they’ll be able to pay next month’s rent, according to figures from the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey. Hispanic renters face similar economic strain: 22% say they missed last month’s rent and 46% fear they won’t make rent next month.

Those numbers are simply eye-popping.  As people increasingly get behind on their bills, the cries for more direct government assistance will become deafening, and it appears that Republicans and Democrats in Congress both want to pass yet another stimulus bill.

Of course that will mean borrowing and spending more gigantic piles of money that we do not currently have, but at this point most Americans do not seem to care that we are literally completely destroying our financial future.

For such a long time, I warned that the next economic downturn would be worse than the last recession, and that has turned out to be precisely correct.

And what we are experiencing right now will pale in comparison to what is eventually coming.

But for most people, the only thing that seems to matter is what is happening here and now.

And at this moment we are seeing tremendous economic suffering in major cities all over the nation, and in an election year very few of our politicians want to be the “bad guy” that says that we can’t hand out “free money” to everyone.

So our currency will continue to be rapidly devalued, our debt levels will continue to explode, and we shall get to see where this relentless march toward socialism takes us.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

The Numbers Tell Us That The ‘Economic Recovery’ Is Dead And Businesses Are Failing At A Staggering Pace

Even though economic conditions were absolutely awful, during the month of June the mainstream media kept insisting that the U.S. economy was “recovering” and the stock market kept surging on every hint of good news.  But now the “economic recovery” narrative is completely dead, because the numbers clearly show that the U.S. economy is rapidly moving in the wrong direction.  On Thursday, the Labor Department announced that another 1.416 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week.  Prior to this year, the all-time record for a single week was just 695,000, and so we are talking about a level of unemployment that is absolutely catastrophic.  But what is really alarming many analysts is that the number for last week was quite a bit higher than the number for the week before.  Many states are rolling out new restrictions as the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases continues to surge, and this is having a huge impact on economic activity.  For months I have been warning that fear of COVID-19 would prevent economic activity from returning to normal levels for the foreseeable future, and that is precisely what has happened.

Overall, more than 52 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits over the past 18 weeks, and that makes this the biggest spike in unemployment in U.S. history by a very wide margin.

In fact, this dwarfs all previous spikes by so much that the others are not even worth mentioning.

Of course it isn’t just the employment numbers that are depressingly bad.  According to Jefferies, in late June 19 percent of all U.S. small businesses were closed, but now that number has risen to 24.5 percent…

As of Sunday, 24.5% of small businesses in the United States were closed, according to Jefferies. That is worse than late June, when only 19% were closed. Jefferies pointed to “particular weakness in COVID hot spots” and noted that small business employment had dropped to levels unseen since the end of May.

Just think about that number for a minute.

Nearly a quarter of all small businesses in the entire country are closed.

And the really bad news is that many of them will never end up reopening.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I received a lot of criticism for stating that many of the small businesses that were shutting down at that time would never open again, but over the long-term the numbers have shown that I was correct.

In fact, Yelp says that a whopping 60 percent of the restaurants that were initially listed as “temporarily closed” on their site are now classified as permanently closed…

It’s tough out there for restaurants and other small businesses.

Yelp’s Economic Average report out Wednesday shows exactly how tough: 60 percent of the 26,160 temporarily closed restaurants on the business review site as of July are now permanently shut. Temporary closures are dropping, and permanent shutdowns are increasing.

Fear of COVID-19 is going to cause a large portion of the population to continue to avoid restaurants for as long as this pandemic persists, and it is becoming clear that it is likely to persist for a long time to come.

We are going to lose so many small and independent places to eat.  Many of the big corporate chains that have very deep pockets will survive, at least for a while, but there is simply no replacing what small and independent restaurants mean to our communities.

Bars and clubs are being hit extremely hard as well.  According to Yelp, 44 percent of the bars and clubs on their site that were initially listed as “temporarily closed” have now been shut down on a permanent basis…

Bars and clubs are also closing forever at high rates: 44 percent (as of July) of 5,454 temporarily shuttered bars and other nightlife establishments are shut for good.

Other sectors of the economy are doing relatively better, but the overall outlook for small businesses in America is exceedingly bleak.

In New York City, it is being projected that one-third of all small businesses will never be able to open again…

As many as 76,000 small businesses in New York City – a third of the 230,000 citywide – may never reopen after forced to close during the COVID-19 lockdown, business leaders have warned.

The Partnership for New York City, a not-for-profit organization that connects business leaders with local government, predicted that 76,000 small businesses will never be able to reopen in a report produced by 14 consulting firms.

I know that number is hard to believe, but this is actually happening.

Our politicians want to encourage people “to go back to work”, but for millions upon millions of Americans the jobs that they once had are gone forever.

Air travel is another industry that is being absolutely devastated by this pandemic.  After a modest bounce in June, the number of air passengers is starting to fall again…

The resurgence of coronavirus infections is derailing the travel industry’s modest recovery. The number of air passengers processed through TSA security lines fell during the week ended July 20, compared with the prior week, according to Bank of America. This metric is down more than 70% from a year ago.

United (UAL) CEO Scott Kirby told CNBC on Wednesday that the airline doesn’t “expect to get anywhere close to normal until there’s a vaccine that’s been widely distributed to a large portion of the population.”

All of the numbers that I have shared in this article tell us that we are in an economic depression.

Many had hoped that this economic downturn would be short-lived and that a “V-shaped recovery” would commence once the coronavirus lockdowns were lifted.

But instead a resurgence of cases has caused new restrictions to be implemented, and economic activity is slowing down again.

The bottom line is that all of us need to get prepared to weather a long-term economic storm that is going to be incredibly painful.

The last recession was bad, but it isn’t even worth comparing to the times that we are entering now.  All of our lives are being turned upside down, and a lot of people are not going to be able to handle what comes next.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

As America’s Economic Suffering Grows, The Calls For More Socialism Grow Louder

It is during moments of great crisis that we find out who we really are, and that is why the governmental response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been so heartbreaking.  Instead of rallying around our founding principles, Democrats and Republicans have both gravitated toward “solutions” that are in the exact opposite direction.  Bigger government programs, more government tyranny and huge socialist transfer payments have all been greatly welcomed by the mainstream media and by large portions of the U.S. population, and at the same time very few voices are warning us that these measures are eroding our fundamental rights, exploding the size of our national debt and setting extremely dangerous precedents for the future.

Once people become accustomed to receiving money directly from the federal government, it is exceedingly difficult to ever cut those payments off.  If you think back through our history, it is difficult to name a single major transfer payment program that was ever rolled back.  Over time, our federal government has just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, and it is now the biggest government that anyone has ever seen in the history of the entire planet.

Yes, tens of millions of Americans are deeply hurting right now.  Over the past 17 weeks, a total of 51.3 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits, and that represents the most dramatic spike in unemployment that the U.S. has ever experienced.

And since most Americans were just barely scraping by financially coming into this year, we are facing a future in which millions upon millions of our fellow citizens aren’t going to be able to pay their bills.  In a recent article, USA Today featured the tragic story of a 35-year-old hair stylist named Chelsie Caudle…

The mother of two has run into delays applying for unemployment and food stamps in Portland, Oregon, after Grace Salon, a hair salon that specializes in cutting and coloring, was forced to shutter in March when the coronavirus pandemic hit.

Caudle, who is self-employed, sublet a spot at Grace Salon to run her own business called Benjamin LLC. But with no income coming in for months, bills piled up, making it hard for her to afford groceries for her family, she says.

I think that most of us can identify with what she is going through, because nearly all of us have experienced the same thing at some point in our lives.

In order to relieve the suffering of those that found themselves suddenly unemployed, Congress approved $600 a week unemployment bonuses as part of the 2.2 trillion dollar CARES Act that it passed in March…

The $600 weekly payments from the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program were put in place as part of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act that Congress passed in late March amid the coronavirus pandemic. Americans who are eligible for unemployment insurance receive an extra $600 on top of what they normally claim under their state’s benefits. Yet this boost is scheduled to end for all states except New York, on Saturday July 25, 2020. New York’s end date is Sunday, July 26, according to the Department of Labor.

For a while, it sounded like the Republicans were actually against extending the extra unemployment benefits, but now it appears that they just hope to reduce them a bit…

On Sunday, The Washington Post reported that in light of the enhanced $600 per week federal unemployment benefits poised to run out in less than a week, the White House and top Senate Republicans are considering measures including extending a smaller-scale weekly federal enhanced unemployment benefit of $200 or $400 per week or means-testing future federal unemployment benefits.

In the end, the Republican socialists in Congress will probably fold like a 20 dollar suit like they always do, and so the Democratic socialists in Congress will likely end up with most (or all) of what they want in this next “stimulus bill”.

And very few people will even talk about the fact that this new “stimulus bill” will steal trillions of more dollars from future generations of Americans.

This is what socialism always does.  It steals money from one group and gives it to another.

In our case, we have been stealing from future generations for so long that we have absolutely obliterated the bright future that they were supposed to have.

Meanwhile, the calls for “a second stimulus check” are becoming louder as well.

In fact, one recent survey found that a lot of Americans want the next “stimulus check” to be even bigger than the last one…

More than two-thirds of Americans say they still need a second stimulus check from the government to help make ends meet, according to recent data from tax preparer Jackson Hewitt. And about a third of that group said the $1,200 checks needed to be more than the previous round. Only about a quarter of them say they wouldn’t need another emergency payment.

When the first round of stimulus checks went out, I warned that this was setting a very dangerous precedent and that people would soon want more checks, and I was precisely correct.

There are a lot of good conservatives out there that felt guilty about taking the first round of stimulus checks because they recognized that the checks represented a giant step toward socialism.

I can definitely understand why people were feeling conflicted, but my advice is to accept whatever checks the government sends to you.

Because at this point what we are facing is a battle for survival.  We are entering a truly nightmarish chapter in American history, and our entire system is going to fail.  If a little bit of extra money can help you and your family get prepared for what is coming, that is a good thing.

However, it is also appropriate to mourn for what has been lost.  At one time, America was a beacon of hope in a world where billions were living under socialist tyranny.  But now we are racing toward full-blown socialism at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking, and nearly all of our politicians have completely abandoned our founding principles.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

The Housing Crisis Of 2020: Millions Of Americans Missed Their Last Rent Payments, And Tens Of Millions Could Soon Be Evicted

Week after week we continue to get economic numbers that are absolutely horrific, and it appears that we are heading for a housing crisis that will be even worse than what we witnessed in 2008.  Back then, millions of Americans lost their homes, but this time around it could be tens of millions.  I know that a statement like that may sound overly dramatic, but I believe that many of you that feel that way may change your minds after reading this entire article.

In order to make rent and mortgage payments, Americans need paychecks coming in, and right now people continue to lose jobs at a pace that is hard to believe.

On Thursday, we learned that another 1.3 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week.  That was worse than expected, and it represented the 17th week in a row when the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits exceeded one million.

And as I keep reminding my readers each week, the all-time record for a single week prior to this year was just 695,000.

Overall, more than 51 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits over the last 17 weeks, and that is by far the largest spike in unemployment in all of U.S. history.

In fact, the numbers that we have been seeing should theoretically be close to impossible.  In February, the number of Americans that were employed peaked at an all-time high of 152 million, and the number of people that have filed new claims for unemployment since that time represents more than a third of that total.

I know that some people are hesitant to use the term “economic collapse”, but what else are we supposed to call this?

Incredibly, one expect quoted by USA Today is telling us that the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits could actually “increase” next week…

The rollbacks may spark a new wave of layoffs, especially in hard-hit states like Texas, Florida, Arizona and California, and possibly even push the claims totals higher.

“Next week could easily see an increase” in initial claims, economist Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics wrote in a research note.

Needless to say, this tsunami of unemployment has resulted in a whole lot of people not being able to make their rent payments.

In fact, the Census Bureau has announced that 11.6 million Americans live in households that did not make their most recent rent payments…

According to the latest weekly Census Bureau data, 11.6 million people live in households that missed their last rental payments.

More than 22 million Americans also have no, or only slight confidence, that they will be able to make next month’s rental payments, the figures show.

Ouch.

Large numbers of Americans are getting behind on their mortgage payments as well.  The following comes from Wolf Richter…

In April, the share of all mortgages that were past due, but less than 30 days, soared to 3.4% of all mortgages, the highest in the data going back to 1999. This was up from 0.7% in April last year. During the Housing Bust, this rate peaked in November 2008 at 2%

In the months ahead, millions of Americans will fall so far behind on their rent payments that they will be facing eviction.

And millions of other Americans will fall so far behind on their mortgages that they will be in serious danger of losing their homes.

According to Emily Benfer, we could potentially see a total of “20 million to 28 million people” get kicked out of their homes in the months ahead…

“We have never seen this extent of eviction in such a truncated amount of time in our history,” Benfer said when asked about how the current homeless crisis compares to the 2008 housing crisis.

She continued: “We can expect this to increase dramatically in the coming weeks and months, especially as the limited support and intervention measures that are in place start to expire. About 10 million people, over a period of years, were displaced from their homes following the foreclosure crisis in 2008. We’re looking at 20 million to 28 million people in this moment, between now and September, facing eviction.”

We have never seen anything like this before.

And of course Benfer is assuming that there won’t be another major crisis between now and the end of the year.

So what happens if we get to September, October and November and things in this country start going absolutely haywire once again?

The closer we get to the election, the higher societal tensions will run, and they are already so high that we could see a major eruption at literally any moment.

And I should also mention that the $600 weekly bonus payments that were keeping so many unemployed Americans afloat will be terminated at the end of July.  Once those payments stop, millions upon millions of unemployed workers will have a much, much more difficult time making rent and mortgage payments.

Most Americans believe that “the worst is behind us”, but the truth is that we are sleepwalking into an unprecedented economic nightmare.

If you follow my work on The Most Important News, you already know how concerned I am about the end of this year and beyond, and I will be laying out precisely what I believe is coming in my new book which will be released later this month.

The “perfect storm” which I have mentioned so many times over the last couple of years is now here, and most Americans are completely and totally unprepared for it.

I would very much encourage you to take the summer months as an opportunity to make the preparations that you need to make for the chaos that is approaching.  As I detailed two days ago, we are already witnessing nationwide shortages of aluminum cans, soda, flour, canned soup, pasta and rice.  As the problems in our nation intensify, the shortages will only get worse.

Of course in order to store up supplies you must have somewhere to put them, and for tens of millions of Americans it is going to be a real struggle just to keep their homes during the months ahead.

It looks like we are facing a housing crisis that is going to be far worse than anything that we experienced during the last recession, and unless Congress starts making money rain from the sky it doesn’t appear that there is any hope of stopping it.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

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