As unemployment keeps rising with no plans from DC, Evers teams up with other guvs

Today being Thursday, it was time for another update of how many layoffs have been coming in this time of the COVID-19 outbreak. And the number is still massive, with a still-incomprehensible toll over the last 4 weeks.

Another 5.2 million workers filed for their first week of unemployment benefits last week, according to the US Department of Labor, bringing the total number of Americans who have filed initial jobless claims to around 22 million, or roughly 13.5% of the labor force, since March 14.

Overall, the last four weeks have marked the largest and most dramatic rise in claims on record since the Labor Department started tracking the data in 1967. It is straining state unemployment agencies' ability to handle the crush of filers and threatening to drain some states' unemployment trust funds in coming weeks.

Other jobs crises have played out far more slowly. In the Great Recession, for example, employment declined by 8.6 million workers between its peak in November 2007 and trough in December 2009.

This time, mass layoffs and furloughs came suddenly as states enacted lockdowns of all but essential businesses to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

Interestingly, most of that damage didn’t show up in today’s Wisconsin jobs report for March, because of when the survey was taken. In fact, our unemployment rate dropped in this report, which state officials admit is not an accurate reflection of what things have now become.

The Department of Workforce Development (DWD) today released the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) preliminary employment estimates for the month of March 2020. The data shows that Wisconsin's unemployment rate in March was 3.4 percent, down from 3.5 percent in February. The timing of the monthly survey pre-dated the impacts of COVID-19 on Wisconsin's economy, so the decrease in the unemployment rate and one-month delay in the data reporting provides a report that is not fully indicative of the current Wisconsin economy and labor market.

• Place of Residence Data: Wisconsin's labor force participation rate in March was 66.8, 4.1 percent higher than the national rate of 62.7 percent. Wisconsin's unemployment rate in March was 3.4 percent, 1.0 percent lower than the national rate of 4.4 percent.

• Place of Work Data: Wisconsin's total non-farm jobs decreased by 6,900 and private-sector jobs decreased by 6,300 jobs from February 2020 to March 2020. From March 2019 to March 2020, Wisconsin added 4,800 total non-farm jobs and 4,400 private-sector jobs.

These relatively tepid numbers are because the survey for the employment report was done in the 2nd week of March, when COVID-19 shutdowns had barely happened, and the state had few new unemployment claims at that time.

There are a lot more of those claims now.

If you look at those continuing claim numbers, and put in the 220,000 increase in that figure over the last 3 weeks, that’s a 10.5% unemployment rate with the same labor force. Although it’s worth mentioning that both the state and the US saw a decline in the work force in March (participation rate down 0.7% in the US, and labor force down 4,000 in Wisconsin), as some more people weren’t looking for work at the time.

Right before those unemployment figures hit, Evers joined Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Governor Thomas Wolf of Pennsylvania in asking the Trump Administration to work with Congresss ion getting more money sent to states. In the process, Evers gave us an idea about the type of budget hole that will likely result from the coronavirus recession.

Wisconsin is already experiencing major job losses in the wake of COVID-19, with the unemployment rate estimated at roughly 15% of the state’s workforce as of today. Our initial estimates indicate that state revenue losses are likely to exceed $2 billion over the next year, and this significant revenue shortfall will damage the state’s ability to respond to the economic crisis faced by our workers and businesses.

15% is more than the 10.5% I estimated above, but perhaps Evers is also counting on some seasonally-adjusted losses in that stat, as Wisconsin companies are usually hiring in April instead of laying people off.

Also worth keeping in mind is that the $2 billion in lost revenue will be combined with increased costs required to deal with more people on Medicaid, SNAP and unemployment, among other needs. You can see where a state like Wisconsin are going to need help that goes well beyond the $1.9 billion in federal aid that was projected to come in from the CARES Act.

Right after that letter was sent by the three Rust Belt governors, Evers signed onto Wisconsin being one of 7 states in our part of the country that are going to work together to both combat COVID-19 and get the economy restarted in more areas. The governors of those states released this joint statement along with that announcement.

“Our number one priority when analyzing when best to reopen our economy is the health and safety of our citizens. We will make decisions based on facts, science, and recommendations from experts in health care, business, labor, and education.

“We will closely examine at least these four factors when determining when best to reopen our economy:
• Sustained control of the rate of new infections and hospitalizations.
• Enhanced ability to test and trace.
• Sufficient health care capacity to handle resurgence.
• And best practices for social distancing in the workplace.

“Phasing in sectors of our economy will be most effective when we work together as a region. This doesn’t mean our economy will reopen all at once, or that every state will take the same steps at the same time. But close coordination will ensure we get this right. Over time, people will go back to work, restaurants will reopen, and things will go back to normal. We look forward to working together as one region to tackle this challenge together.”

The other message in this announcement? The Trump Administration has no clue on how to lead and we are on our own when it comes to getting us out of this mess.

And despite what WMC and other right-wing oligarchs might think, if we can’t crush COVID-19, we won’t have the economy growing and lots of jobs coming back regardless of how many businesses are allowed to open. So we might as well take care of basic health and try to stay afloat as best we can, because we'll never recover if we don't restore our health.