Michael Snyder – July 7, 2020
The recession of 2008 and 2009 was bad, but it was nothing like this. Even though this new economic downturn is only a few months old, we are already seeing numbers that we haven’t seen since the worst parts of the Great Depression of the 1930s. More than 48 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits over the past 15 weeks, well over 100,000 businesses have permanently closed their doors, and civil unrest has turned quite a few of our major cities into war zones. But not all areas of the country are being affected equally. For example, there are rural areas that haven’t really seen a lot of COVID-19 cases where life seems to have changed very little from six months ago. On the other hand, some urban areas that have been hit really hard by COVID-19 have been absolutely devastated economically. For example, the New York Times is reporting that a million jobs have been lost in New York City, and the unemployment rate for NYC “is hovering near 20 percent”…
The city is staggering toward reopening with some workers back at their desks or behind cash registers, and on Monday, it began a new phase, allowing personal-care services like nail salons and some outdoor recreation to resume. Even so, the city’s unemployment rate is hovering near 20 percent — a figure not seen since the Great Depression.
We are going to be using the phrase “since the Great Depression” a lot in the coming months.