On October 2nd, the Payroll Protection Program ended. Thousands of workers were laid off as small businesses ran out of what little savings they had and big corporations stopped receiving relief funding.
During the pandemic, the wealth of American billionaires has soared with the stock market while 22 million workers lost their jobs in the same time span. Now, there are still 11 million fewer jobs than in February, and it has largely affected people along gender and racial lines. 7% of whites were jobless last month, compared to more than 10% of Blacks and Hispanics, and 4 times as many women became unemployed than men.
This is largely due to the ineffectiveness of Congress and the White House. The divided chambers of Congress failed to reach an agreement on a bipartisan stimulus package after the first $2 trillion in March, and the White House has rejected any proposed plans, with Trump blatantly telling Republicans not to agree to anything earlier this month before reversing course as the pandemic worsened. On the other hand, the Federal Reserve has had no qualms about pumping money into the stock market. Jobs are still disappearing and people are being evicted as the protections from the March deal expired in August, and the stimulus checks in April weren't nearly enough.
Part of this is due to Washington's distance from the rest of the country. Most politicians on Capitol Hill aren't broke, and neither are their friends, making it hard for them to grasp the magnitude of the economic recession. In the meantime, all the furloughed workers are in freefall without a safety net.
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