Courtesy of Pam Martens
Senator Bob Menendez
The Orwellian nature of U.S. politics as well as the delusional Republican narrative that the U.S. economy has made a robust recovery and “turned the corner” was on tortuous display at yesterday’s Senate Banking hearing.
Trump’s loyal devotees on the Senate Banking Committee continued to promote the narrative that job growth is stellar. It isn’t job “growth,” it’s simply some people being called back to the same jobs after their employers reopened after a shutdown because of the pandemic. The Trump administration’s own Department of Labor reported on November 25 that the total number of people claiming unemployment benefits in all unemployment benefit programs for the week ending November 7 was 20,452,223. The 20.4 million figure is 13.7 times where that number stood for the same week in 2019 before the pandemic struck.
Yesterday’s hearing was called to question Fed Chair Jerome Powell and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on the Fed and Treasury’s COVID-19 emergency loan programs. Democrats reported on the bleak reality on the ground while Republicans, for the most part, adopted the upbeat talking points from Trump.
Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey told Powell and Mnuchin that according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, “at least 3.3 million small businesses have closed, 441,000 of which are black owned and 657,000 which are Latino-owned businesses.” That NBER paper was released in June, thus the actual closures year-to-date are likely far greater. Menendez also stated that 1.1 million local and state employees have lost their jobs according to Trump’s own Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Senator Catherine Cortez Masto spoke about the dire situation in the hotel industry. According to a November 10-13 survey by the American Hotel & Lodging Association, “71% of hotels won’t make it another 6 months without further federal assistance given current and projected travel demand.” The survey also found that “77% will be forced to lay off more workers.” Almost half (47 percent) of respondents said they would be forced to close hotels without further government assistance such as a second Paycheck Protection Program loan or expansion of the Main Street Lending Program.
…
