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COVID-19 has had a devastating effect on the national economy. The initial lockdown effort closed huge swaths of the national economy, including restaurants and bars. This has resulted in soaring unemployment numbers and staggering damage to many local economies.
Several states have begun tentatively reopening parts of their economies. This has led to an increase in people searching “new hiring jobs near me,” as some businesses slowly come back online. However, amid this, over 3 million new jobless claims were filed last week alone. Notably, this is the second-lowest total since March.
This does, however, bring the number of new jobless claims in the past seven weeks up to 33.5 million.
The lockdown efforts have remained a major source of conflict among dueling ideologies in the US. On the one hand, medical experts continue to insist the these efforts are the only safe way to keep the virus from spreading unchecked. On the other hand, many economists have voiced concerns that prolonged lockdowns risk dealing irreversible damage to the economy.
This has led to many states performing a grim sort of calculus, determining the safest way to reopen and resume normal life. The fact of the matter is, states that aren’t bringing in tax revenue can’t pay out unemployment benefits. States, who are unable to spend on deficit, are feeling the pressure of the lockdowns as much as the average household.
However, this has led to many proponents of the stay-at-home measures to label these states as valuing money over lives. These proponents argue that states are rushing to reopen even while there is no way to prevent a second outbreak of COVID-19.
For the most part, this divide seems to be overwhelmingly partisan. While the early response to the virus was largely bipartisan, the ongoing lockdown has driven a wedge between the parties again. Democrats in Congress and state governments largely support keeping lockdown measures in place for as long as medical experts recommend them.
Republicans, by contrast, both in Congress and state governments, seem to have grown tired of the measures. Many of the states moving most rapidly to reopen, like Georgia, Texas and South Carolina, have republican leadership. Likewise, states with the most stringent lockdowns still in place, like New York and California, have democratic leadership.
All eyes now turn to data. As states reopen, experts in both medicine and economics will likely be eagerly anticipating hospital numbers from new COVID cases. Should the earliest reopening states show no new spike in cases, other states may follow suit. Conversely, if this results in new outbreaks of COVID-19, it is likely other states will become even more wary of efforts to reopen their economies.
