Idiocracy with Numbers

The Post is holding out hope that Trump may yet turn out to be this era’s FDR 🙃 pic.twitter.com/Zq7d6QeD2g

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 19, 2020

Anybody who thinks this bailout package is going to be the equivalent of all the programs passed by FDR as the "New Deal" is not playing with a full historical deck; nor recognizing that unemployment rates during the Great Depression, equal to what Mnuchin warned the GOP Senators was possible, only really ended with World War II and MASSIVE deficit spending (you don't fund a war on two fronts on what you have stuffed under the mattress). Here, take some numbers:

We can only guess how high unemployment will rise as the coronavirus crisis wares on. But the early numbers, based on state unemployment applications, are already staggering:

• In Colorado, 6,800 people attempted to file on Tuesday, compared with just 400 a week before.

• Connecticut residents filed 30,000 unemployment claims between Friday and Monday; the state usually receives 3,000 to 3,500 per week.

• New Jersey saw 15,000 applications on Monday, a one-day record.

• In New York, state officials are comparing the spike in claims to what occurred after 9/11.

• Massachusetts residents filed almost 20,000 claims on Monday alone, more than all of February.

• In Ohio, where the governor has ordered all bars and restaurants closed, residents filed more than 48,000 claims over two days, compared with 1,825 during the same two days a week before.

And here, put those numbers in perspective:

The entire leisure and hospitality sector, which employs 16.9 million people, or about 10 percent of the entire labor force, is going into hibernation, as Americans avoid bars, restaurants, and travel, and states and cities begin to order establishments closed. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin reportedly told Republican senators on Tuesday that, unless they passed a massive stimulus package, the country could face 20 percent unemployment, a number last seen in the Great Depression. He might be exaggerating, but given the particular contours of this crisis, which is essentially gutting the services industry, it’s not an entirely crazy thought.

Does anybody seriously think $1000 per person, or even per means-tested person, is going to make a difference in that situation?*  People living paycheck to paycheck might pay the rent with it, but if it doesn't arrive until mid-April or even May (most estimates), it's too little too late.  Unless landlords suddenly become generous, open-hearted people.  Even then, it's like water poured on desert sands; gone before you realize you had it. With no income, how do you pay for your utilities, and transport (car insurance alone....), or buy food?  Yeah, $1000 in six weeks or maybe 8 will do wonders for turning the economy around and making Trump FDR instead of Hoover.  Even FDR implemented programs that gave people regular paychecks, not just a check that won't make any difference and will never be repeated.  What, once the bar opens everything's back to normal and it's like it all never happened?

Good lord, just how innumerate are people these days?

*A better suggestion is to put the money into massive increases in unemployment compensation, so it reaches the people who need it, and faster.  Even then, it's hardly a "guaranteed income" that really makes a difference, especially if the recovery stalls for other reasons unrelated to "The Bar's Open!"