Category Archives: Uninsured

Iowa tells workers to return to their jobs or lose unemployment benefits, despite warnings that reopening could lead to a 2nd wave of infections

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Clinical Testing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economy, Emergency Preparedness, Employee Furlough, Employee Hiring Freeze, Employee Layoffs, Employee Pay Cuts, Employee Protections, Essential Businesses, Essential Workers, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infectious Virus, Mortality, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured, Worker Protection, Worker Rights • Leave a comment

https://www.businessinsider.com/iowa-tells-workers-return-to-work-or-lose-unemployment-benefits-2020-4?fbclid=IwAR3OghoKRKsPt9JVz4TIsn_Qv5im_ZPaCmzPenmsEFgJR80YXbFJ2QWrxpE

Iowa tells workers to return to work or lose unemployment benefits ...

  • Iowa is preparing to partially reopen 77 counties on Friday.
  • The state said furloughed employees who refuse to return to work that they would lose their unemployment benefits — and Gov. Kim Reynolds said it could disqualify them from future unemployment benefits.
  • However, a group of experts advised the governor last week not to loosen restrictions and said the state has not reached its peak of infections and deaths.

As Iowa prepares to partially reopen on Friday, the state has told furloughed workers that they will lose their unemployment benefits if they refuse to return to work.

The Des Moines Register reported that businesses like restaurants, bars, retail stores, and fitness centers would be allowed to reopen at half capacity starting on May 1. Gov. Kim Reynolds said the 77 reopening counties either have no cases or are on a downward trend.

Iowa Workforce Development, a state agency that provides employment services for individual workers, said an employee’s refusal return to work out of fear would be considered a “voluntary quit” — which would mean they could no longer receive unemployment benefits. The announcement applies to workers across the state.

Ryan West, the deputy director of Iowa Workforce Development, told Radio Iowa that there were some exceptions, such as workers diagnosed with COVID-19.

The Iowa Workforce Development website prompts employers to fill out what it calls a Job Offer Decline Form for employees who refuse to return to work. The governor has said that opting not to go back to work could disqualify employees from future unemployment benefits.

Business Insider’s Andy Kiersz reported that 232,913 Iowans filed for unemployment between March 15 and April 18, which is 13.5% of the state’s labor force.

Last week, seven epidemiology and biostatistics professors from the University of Iowa advised the governor not to loosen social-distancing restrictions, KWWL reported. They wrote a research paper for the governor after they were commissioned by the Iowa Department of Public Health.

“We observe a huge range of possible outcomes, from relatively low fatalities to catastrophic loss of life,” the paper said.

The scientists said there was still “considerable uncertainty” over how many deaths the state may eventually have; the projections range from 150 to over 10,000 deaths.

“We have found evidence of a slowdown in infection and mortality rates due to social distancing policies, but not that a peak has been reached,” the paper said. The professors said that did not mean measures should be eased: “Therefore, prevention measures should remain in place. Without such measures being continued, a second wave of infections is likely.”

 

 

 

U.S. coronavirus updates

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Clinical Testing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Emergency Preparedness, Employee Benefits, Employee Furlough, Employee Layoffs, Employee Pay Cuts, Employer-Based Health Insurance, False Hope, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Healthcare Providers, Intensive Care (ICU), Job Market, Job Search, Job Security, Leadership Decentralized, Mortality, Nurses, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Physician, Preexisting Conditions, Protest, Public Health, Public Safety, Social Distancing, Surprise Bills, Uncertainty, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured, Unrealistic Expectations, Vaccination, Vaccine, Ventilators • Leave a comment

https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-west-virginia-first-case-ac32ce6d-5523-4310-a219-7d1d1dcb6b44.html

Coronavirus outbreak is level of public pain we haven't seen in ...

 

The pandemic is a long way from over, and its impact on our daily lives, information ecosystem, politics, cities and health care will last even longer.

The big picture: The novel coronavirus has infected more than 939,000 people and killed over 54,000 in the U.S., Johns Hopkins data shows. More than 105,000 Americans have recovered from the virus as of Sunday.

Lockdown measures: Demonstrators gathered in Florida, Texas and Louisiana Saturday to protest stay-at-home orders designed to protect against the spread of COVID-19, following a week of similar rallies across the U.S.

  • 16 states have released formal reopening plans, Vice President Mike Pence said at Thursday’s White House briefing. Several Southern states including South Carolina have already begun reopening their economies.
  • Alaska, Oklahoma and Georgia reopened some non-essential businesses Friday. President Trump said Wednesday he “strongly” disagrees with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on the move.
  • California’s stay-at-home orders and business restrictions will remain in place, Gov. Gavin Newsom made clear at a Wednesday news briefing. But some local authorities reopened beaches in Southern California Saturday.
  • New York recorded its third-straight day of fewer coronavirus deaths Friday. Still, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he’s not willing to reopen the state, citing CDC guidance that states need two weeks of flat or declining numbers.

Catch up quick: Deborah Birx said Sunday that it “bothers” her that the news cycle is still focused on Trump’s comments about disinfectants possibly treating coronavirus, arguing that “we’re missing the bigger pieces” about how Americans can defeat the virus.

  • Anthony Fauci said Saturday the U.S. is testing roughly 1.5 million to 2 million people a week. “We probably should get up to twice that as we get into the next several weeks, and I think we will,” he said.
  • The number of sailors aboard the USS Kidd to test positive for the coronavirus has risen from 18 Friday to 33, the U.S. Navy said Saturday. It’s the second major COVID-19 outbreak on a U.S. naval vessel, after the USS Theodore Roosevelt, where a total of 833 crew members tested positive, per the Navy’s latest statement.
  • The first person known to have the coronavirus when they died was killed by a heart attack “due to COVID-19 infection” on Feb. 6, autopsy results obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle on Saturday show.
  • Some young coronavirus patients are having severe strokes.
  • Trump tweeted Saturday that White House press conferences are “not worth the time & effort.” As first reported by Axios, Trump plans to pare back his coronavirus briefings.
  • The South is at risk of being devastated by the coronavirus, as states tend to have at-risk populations and weak health care systems.
  • New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday Trump was right to criticize the World Health Organization’s handling of the global outbreak.
  • Trump signed legislation Friday for $484 billion in more aid to small businesses and hospitals.
  • The House voted along party lines on Thursday to establish a select committee to oversee the federal government’s response to the crisis.
  • Unemployment: Another 4.4 million Americans filed last week. More than 26 million jobless filings have been made in five weeks due to the pandemic.

 

 

 

 

‘Sadness’ and Disbelief From a World Missing American Leadership

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Failure, False Hope, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infectious Virus, Job Market, Job Security, Leadership, Leadership Culture, Leadership Decentralized, Leadership Trust, Mislead, Misleading, Pandemic, Scientists, Trust, Truth, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured • Leave a comment

Sadness' and Disbelief From a World Missing American Leadership ...

The coronavirus pandemic is shaking bedrock assumptions about U.S. exceptionalism. This is perhaps the first global crisis in more than a century where no one is even looking for Washington to lead.

As images of America’s overwhelmed hospital wards and snaking jobless lines have flickered across the world, people on the European side of the Atlantic are looking at the richest and most powerful nation in the world with disbelief.

“When people see these pictures of New York City they say, ‘How can this happen? How is this possible?’” said Henrik Enderlein, president of the Berlin-based Hertie School, a university focused on public policy. “We are all stunned. Look at the jobless lines. Twenty-two million,” he added.

“I feel a desperate sadness,” said Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of European history at Oxford University and a lifelong and ardent Atlanticist.

The pandemic sweeping the globe has done more than take lives and livelihoods from New Delhi to New York. It is shaking fundamental assumptions about American exceptionalism — the special role the United States played for decades after World War II as the reach of its values and power made it a global leader and example to the world.

Today it is leading in a different way: More than 840,000 Americans have been diagnosed with Covid-19 and at least 46,784 have died from it, more than anywhere else in the world.

As the calamity unfolds, President Trump and state governors are not only arguing over what to do, but also over who has the authority to do it. Mr. Trump has fomented protests against the safety measures urged by scientific advisers, misrepresented facts about the virus and the government response nearly daily, and this week used the virus to cut off the issuing of green cards to people seeking to emigrate to the United States.

“America has not done badly, it has done exceptionally badly,” said Dominique Moïsi, a political scientist and senior adviser at the Paris-based Institut Montaigne.

The pandemic has exposed the strengths and weaknesses of just about every society, Mr. Moïsi noted. It has demonstrated the strength of, and suppression of information by, an authoritarian Chinese state as it imposed a lockdown in the city of Wuhan. It has shown the value of Germany’s deep well of public trust and collective spirit, even as it has underscored the country’s reluctance to step up forcefully and lead Europe.

And in the United States, it has exposed two great weaknesses that, in the eyes of many Europeans, have compounded one another: the erratic leadership of Mr. Trump, who has devalued expertise and often refused to follow the advice of his scientific advisers, and the absence of a robust public health care system and social safety net.

“America prepared for the wrong kind of war,” Mr. Moïsi said. “It prepared for a new 9/11, but instead a virus came.”

“It raises the question: Has America become the wrong kind of power with the wrong kind of priorities?” he asked.

Ever since Mr. Trump moved into the White House and turned America First into his administration’s guiding mantra, Europeans have had to get used to the president’s casual willingness to risk decades-old alliances and rip up international agreements. Early on, he called NATO “obsolete” and withdrew U.S. support from the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal.

But this is perhaps the first global crisis in more than a century where no one is even looking to the United States for leadership.

In Berlin, Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, has said as much.

China took “very authoritarian measures, while in the U.S., the virus was played down for a long time,” Mr. Maas recently told Der Spiegel magazine.

“These are two extremes, neither of which can be a model for Europe,” Mr. Maas said.

America once told a story of hope, and not just to Americans. West Germans like Mr. Maas, who grew up on the front line of the Cold War, knew that story by heart, and like many others in the world, believed it.

But nearly three decades later, America’s story is in trouble.

The country that helped defeat fascism in Europe 75 years ago next month, and defended democracy on the continent in the decades that followed, is doing a worse job of protecting its own citizens than many autocracies and democracies.

There is a special irony: Germany and South Korea, both products of enlightened postwar American leadership, have become potent examples of best practices in the coronavirus crisis.

But critics now see America failing not only to lead the world’s response, but letting down its own people as well.

“There is not only no global leadership, there is no national and no federal leadership in the United States,” said Ricardo Hausmann, director of the Growth Lab at Harvard’s Center for International Development. “In some sense this is the failure of leadership of the U.S. in the U.S.”

Of course, some countries in Europe have also been overwhelmed by the virus, with the number of dead from Covid-19 much higher as a percentage of the population in Italy, Spain and France than in the United States. But they were struck sooner and had less time to prepare and react.

The contrast between how the United States and Germany responded to the virus is particularly striking.

While Chancellor Angela Merkel has been criticized for not taking a forceful enough leadership role in Europe, Germany is being praised for a near-textbook response to the pandemic, at least by Western standards. That is thanks to a robust public health care system, but also a strategy of mass testing and trusted and effective political leadership.

Ms. Merkel has done what Mr. Trump has not. She has been clear and honest about the risks with voters and swift in her response. She has rallied all 16 state governors behind her. A trained physicist, she has followed scientific advice and learned from best practice elsewhere.

Not long ago, Ms. Merkel was considered a spent force, having announced that this would be her last term. Now her approval ratings are at 80 percent.

“She has the mind of a scientist and the heart of a pastor’s daughter,” Mr. Garton Ash said.

Mr. Trump, in a hurry to restart the economy in an election year, has appointed a panel of business executives to chart a course out of the lockdown.

Ms. Merkel, like everyone, would like to find a way out, too, but this week she warned Germans to remain cautious. She is listening to the advice of a multidisciplinary panel of 26 academics from Germany’s national academy of science. The panel includes not just medical experts and economists but also behavioral psychologists, education experts, sociologists, philosophers and constitutional experts.

“You need a holistic approach to this crisis,” said Gerald Haug, the academy’s president, who chairs the German panel. “Our politicians get that.”

A climatologist, Mr. Haug used to do research at Columbia University in New York.

The United States has some of the world’s best and brightest minds in science, he said. “The difference is, they’re not being listened to.”

“It’s a tragedy,” he added.

Some cautioned that the final history of how countries fare after the pandemic is still a long way from being written.

A pandemic is a very specific kind of stress test for political systems, said Mr. Garton Ash, the history professor. The military balance of power has not shifted at all. The United States remains the world’s largest economy. And it was entirely unclear what global region would be best equipped to kick-start growth after a deep recession.

“All of our economies are going to face a terrible test,” he said. “No one knows who will come out stronger at the end.”

Benjamin Haddad, a French researcher at the Atlantic Council, wrote that while the pandemic was testing U.S. leadership, it is “too soon to tell” if it would do long-term damage.

“It is possible that the United States will resort to unexpected resources, and at the same time find a form of national unity in its foreign policy regarding the strategic rivalry with China, which it has been lacking until now,” Mr. Haddad wrote.

There is another wild card in the short term, Mr. Moïsi pointed out. The United States has an election in November. That, and the aftermath of the deepest economic crisis since the 1930s, might also affect the course of history.

The Great Depression gave rise to America’s New Deal. Maybe the coronavirus will lead the United States to embrace a stronger public safety net and develop a national consensus for more accessible health care, Mr. Moïsi suggested.

“Europe’s social democratic systems are not only more human, they leave us better prepared and fit to deal with a crisis like this than the more brutal capitalistic system in the United States,” Mr. Moïsi said.

The current crisis, some fear, could act like an accelerator of history, speeding up a decline in influence of both the United States and Europe.

“Sometime in 2021 we come out of this crisis and we will be in 2030,” said Mr. Moïsi. “There will be more Asia in the world and less West.”

Mr. Garton Ash said that the United States should take an urgent warning from a long line of empires that rose and fell.

“To a historian it’s nothing new, that’s what happens,” said Mr. Garton Ash. “It’s a very familiar story in world history that after a certain amount of time a power declines.”

“You accumulate problems, and because you’re such a strong player, you can carry these dysfunctionalities for a long time,” he said. “Until something happens and you can’t anymore.”

 

 

 

 

Jobless Numbers Are ‘Eye-Watering’ but Understate the Crisis

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economic Stimulus, Economy, Employee Benefits, Employee Furlough, Employee Layoffs, Employee Pay Cuts, Employee Protections, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Essential Health Benefits, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Job, Job Market, Job Search, Job Security, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pandemic, Preexisting Conditions, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured • Leave a comment

How the coronavirus created a U.S. unemployment crisis — in 3 graphics

With 4.4 million added last week, the five-week total passed 26 million. The struggle by states to field claims has hampered economic recovery.

Nearly a month after Washington rushed through an emergency package to aid jobless Americans, millions of laid-off workers have still not been able to apply for those benefits — let alone receive them — because of overwhelmed state unemployment systems.

Across the country, states have frantically scrambled to handle a flood of applications and apply a new set of federal rules even as more and more people line up for help. On Thursday, the Labor Department reported that another 4.4 million people filed initial unemployment claims last week, bringing the five-week total to more than 26 million.

“At all levels, it’s eye-watering numbers,” Torsten Slok, chief international economist at Deutsche Bank Securities, said. Nearly one in six American workers has lost a job in recent weeks.

Delays in delivering benefits, though, are as troubling as the sheer magnitude of the figures, he said. Such problems not only create immediate hardships, but also affect the shape of the recovery when the pandemic eases.

Laid-off workers need money quickly so that they can continue to pay rent and credit card bills and buy groceries. If they can’t, Mr. Slok said, the hole that the larger economy has fallen into “gets deeper and deeper, and more difficult to crawl out of.”

Hours after the Labor Department report, the House passed a $484 billion coronavirus relief package to replenish a depleted small-business loan program and fund hospitals and testing. The Senate approved the bill earlier this week.

Even as Congress continues to provide aid, distribution has remained challenging. According to the Labor Department, only 10 states have started making payments under the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which extends coverage to freelancers, self-employed workers and part-timers. Most states have not even completed the system needed to start the process.

Ohio, for example, will not start processing claims under the expanded federal eligibility criteria until May 15. Recipients whose state benefits ran out, but who can apply for extended federal benefits, will not begin to have their claims processed until May 1.

Pennsylvania opened its website for residents to file for the federal program a few days ago, but some applicants were mistakenly told that they were ineligible after filling out the forms. The state has given no timetable for when benefits might be paid.

Reports of delays, interruptions and glitches continue to come in from workers who have been unable to get into the system, from others who filed for regular state benefits but have yet to receive them, and from applicants who say they have been unfairly turned down and unable to appeal.

Florida has paid just 17 percent of the claims filed since March 15, according to the state’s Department of Economic Opportunity.

“Speed matters” when it comes to government assistance, said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust. Speed can mean the difference between a company’s survival and its failure, or between making a home mortgage payment and facing foreclosure.

There is “a race between policy and a pandemic,” Mr. Tannenbaum said, and in many places, it is clear that the response has been “very uneven.”

Using data reported by the Labor Department for March 14 to April 11, the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group, estimated that seven in 10 applicants were receiving benefits. That left seven million other jobless workers who had filed claims but were still waiting for relief.

States manage their own unemployment insurance programs and set the level of benefits and eligibility rules. Now they are responsible for administering federal emergency benefits that provide payments for an additional 13 weeks, cover previously ineligible workers and add $600 to the regular weekly check.

So far, 44 states have begun to send the $600 supplement to jobless workers who qualified under state rules, the Labor Department said. Only two — Kentucky and Minnesota — have extended federal benefits to workers who have used up their state allotment.

With government phones and websites clogged and drop-in centers closed, legal aid lawyers around the country are fielding complaints from people who say they don’t know where else to turn.

“Our office has received thousands of calls,” said John Tirpak, a lawyer with the Unemployment Law Project, a nonprofit group in Washington.

People with disabilities and nonnative English speakers have had particular problems, he said.

Even those able to file initially say they have had trouble getting back into the system as required weekly to recertify their claims.

Colin Harris of Marysville, Wash., got a letter on March 31 from the state’s unemployment insurance office saying he was eligible for benefits after being laid off as a quality inspector at Safran Cabin, an aerospace company. He submitted claims two weeks in a row and heard nothing. When he submitted his next claim, he was told that he had been disqualified. He has tried calling more than 200 times since then, with no luck.

“And that’s still where I am right now,” he said, “unable to talk to somebody to find out what the issue is.” If he had not received a $1,200 stimulus check from the federal government, he said, he would not have been able to make his mortgage payment.

Last week’s tally of new claims was lower than each of the previous three weeks. But millions of additional claims are still expected to stream in from around the country over the next month, while hiring remains piddling.

States are frantically trying to catch up. California, which has processed 2.7 million claims over the last four weeks, opened a second call center on Monday. New York, which has deployed 3,100 people to answer the telephone, said this week that it had reduced the backlog that accumulated by April 8 to 4,305 from 275,000.

Florida had the largest increase in initial claims last week, although the state figures, unlike the national total, are not seasonally adjusted. That increase could be a sign that jobless workers finally got access to the system after delays, but it is impossible to assess how many potential applicants have still failed to get in.

The 10 states that have started making Pandemic Unemployment Assistance payments to workers who would not normally qualify under state guidelines are Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.

Pain is everywhere, but it is most widespread among the most vulnerable.

In a survey that the Pew Research Center released on Tuesday, 52 percent of low-income households — below $37,500 a year for a family of three — said someone in the household had lost a job because of the coronavirus, compared with 32 percent of upper-income ones (with earnings over $112,600). Forty-two percent of families in the middle have been affected as well.

Those without a college education have taken a disproportionate hit, as have Hispanics and African-Americans, the survey found.

An outsize share of jobless claims have also been filed by women, according to an analysis from the Fuller Project, a nonprofit journalism organization that focuses on women.

Josalyn Taylor, 31, learned that she was out of a job on March 16. “I clocked in at 3 o’clock, and by 3:30 my boss called me and told me we were going to shut down for three weeks,” said Ms. Taylor, an assistant manager at Cicis Pizza in Galveston, Tex. The restaurant has yet to reopen.

Two days later, she applied for unemployment insurance, but she kept receiving a message that a claim was already active for her Social Security number and that she could not file. She has tried to clear up the matter hundreds of times — online, by phone and through the Texas Workforce Commission’s site on Facebook — with no luck.

“I used my stimulus check to pay my light bill, and I’m using that to keep groceries and stuff in the house,” said Ms. Taylor, who is five months pregnant. “But other than that, I don’t have any other income, and I’m almost out of money.”

The first wave of layoffs most heavily whacked the restaurant, travel, personal care, retail and manufacturing industries, but the damage has spread to a much broader range of sectors.

At the online job site Indeed, for example, postings for software development jobs are down nearly 30 percent from last year, while listings for finance and banking openings are down more than 40 percent.

New layoffs are expected to ease over the next couple of months, but the damage to the economy is likely to last much longer. In a matter of weeks, the shutdown has more than erased 10 years of net job gains — more than 19 million jobs.

Health and education are going to revive relatively quickly, said Rick Rieder, chief investment officer for global fixed income at BlackRock, but leisure and hospitality are going to take a lot longer.

“A lot of the people who have been furloughed won’t come back,” he said. “Companies will either close or decide not to take back those workers.”

Over the past decade, the employment landscape has shifted substantially as new types of jobs have appeared and old categories have disappeared. The U.S. economy, Mr. Rieder said, is “going to go through another period of evolution.”

 

 

 

 

4.4 million Americans sought jobless benefits last week, as economic pain continued across the United States

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Bankruptcy, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economic Stimulus, Economy, Employee Benefits, Employee Furlough, Employee Layoffs, Employee Pay Cuts, Employee Protections, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Job Market, Job Search, Job Security, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pandemic, Paycheck Protection Program, Preexisting Conditions, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured • Leave a comment

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/23/economy-coronavirus-unemployment/?fbclid=IwAR3EbJpE7nmIUWOM4HUrZVOKaBmls7Uh3gL5ewCP98q7So0s38JlPdTT-SI&utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

4.4 million Americans sought jobless benefits last week, as ...

The White House and Congress have tried to arrest the downturn, but the coronavirus pandemic keeps pushing Americans out of the labor force.

More than 4.4 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, according to the Labor Department, a signal the tidal wave of job losses continues to grow during the coronavirus pandemic.

It’s the fifth straight week that job losses were measured in the millions. From March 15 to April 18, 26.5 million people have probably been laid off or furloughed. The number of jobs lost in that brief span effectively erased all jobs created after the 2008 financial crisis. Jobless figures on this scale haven’t been seen since the Great Depression.

The new weekly total comes on top of 22 million Americans who had sought benefits in previous weeks, a volume that has overwhelmed state systems for processing unemployment claims. Economists estimate the national unemployment rate sits between 15 and 20 percent, much higher than it was during the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009. The unemployment rate at the peak of the Great Depression was about 25 percent.

The new weekly jobless claims figure came in around economists’ predictions, which were expected “to be staggering, but not growing, which is a small mercy,” said Julia Pollak, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter. For comparison, 5.2 million people filed unemployment claims for the week ending April 11.

As the coronavirus began spreading in the United States earlier this year, many businesses rapidly began to close. Hotels, restaurants, and airlines were hit particularly hard, but few businesses were immune from the economic toll. The problems have only worsened each week, as more Americans reduced their spending and more businesses cut workers because income has fallen so sharply.

Pollack said many businesses quickly “cut to the bone” when they realized how the pandemic would gut sales. Now, many of the new layoffs stem from businesses like news organizations and tech companies that weren’t directly affected by people staying home but are suffering the consequences of vanishing ad revenue and paid subscriptions.

“We see declines across every major industry and state, although the declines hit industries at different times,” Pollak said.

Meanwhile, consumer spending, the engine behind the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, has evaporated. If they’re still operating, many offices are working with skeleton staffs and staring down months of dismal revenue.

The White House and Congress have tried to intervene, but with limited impact so far.

New funding for small businesses in a $2 trillion March emergency spending package quickly dried up in the face of overwhelming demand, prompting the Senate to expand funding by $310 billion on Tuesday. The bill would direct an additional $60 billion to a separate small-business emergency grant and loan program. The House is slated to vote on the measure Thursday afternoon.

Even with all the new government spending, hopes for a sharp economic rebound are fading, overtaken by the public fear of going back to restaurants, movie theaters, schools and gyms. The growing possibility of a “W”-shaped recovery — in which a resurgence of the virus, or a spike in defaults and bankruptcies, triggers another downturn — has analysts reframing what a reopened or rehabilitated economy might look like.

This year defies historical comparison. In 2020, 28.9 million people have filed for unemployment benefits. Halfway through the fourth month of the year, the figure has already eclipsed the full-year totals of every year but 1982 (30.4 million) and 2009 (29.8 million). At this rate, it will overtake both within a week or so.

Less than half of working-age Americans will be earning a wage next month, said James Knightley, ING Chief International Economist.

“In an election year, this means that the call for politicians to reopen the economy is only going to get louder, irrespective of the health advice,” Knightley said.

In five weeks, 9.4 percent of the working-age population has filed for unemployment insurance, said Nick Bunker, Indeed Hiring Lab’s director of economic research. That’s about twice the share of the population that lost a job during the Great Recession. In some states, such as Michigan, about one in four workers has filed an unemployment claim in the past few weeks.

“The numbers detailing the shock to the U.S. labor market are so large, and cover such a short time, that your first reaction is that they’re a typo,” Bunker said.

Employers are also unlikely to be hiring at the same levels they were before the pandemic. As of April 16, job postings on Indeed were down 34 percent compared with last year, Bunker said.

The job losses, like the epidemic itself, haven’t fallen evenly across the country. In three states — Hawaii, Kentucky and Michigan — about 1 in 4 workers have filed for unemployment benefits in the past 5 weeks. In Michigan, plant shutdowns and furloughs have ravaged the manufacturing economy, which had only recently recovered all the jobs it lost in the Great Recession.

On the opposite of the ledger sits South Dakota, where Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R) has resisted calls to lock down the state’s businesses to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Only 6 percent of the state’s labor force has applied for unemployment benefits. It may be a regional trend: Neighboring Wyoming and Nebraska, and nearby Utah, also have unusually low claims numbers.

As part of its sprawling stimulus package, Washington has rolled out relief for millions of households and small businesses struggling to make ends meet. But money for struggling businesses quickly ran dry, and system glitches have prevented $1,200 stimulus checks from reaching some of the neediest.

On Tuesday, the Senate passed a bill to expand the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses by $310 billion, and flood a separate small-business emergency grant and loan initiative by an additional $60 billion.

Meanwhile, many low-income veterans and Social Security recipients still haven’t received the stimulus money in their bank accounts, while other IRS checks are going to dead people. People who didn’t file tax returns last year or don’t have direct-deposit information may have weeks more to wait.

In the wake of the Great Recession, the number of unemployed — about 15 million — was significantly higher than the number who claimed benefits, and the unemployment rate still peaked at just 10 percent. Economists expect the United States to blow by that figure when April’s jobs data are released on May 8.

Granted, this comes as unemployment eligibility and benefits have been greatly expanded. The government has relied on the unemployment insurance system to deliver relief to out-of-work Americans as it forces millions of businesses to close during temporary stay-at-home orders. The soaring numbers are, for once, a sign of the system working as intended.

 

 

 

 

Henry Ford Health to furlough 2,800 workers

Posted on by • Posted in Cash, Cash Reserves, Cash-Flow Improvements, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Employee Benefits, Employee Furlough, Employee Layoffs, Employee Pay Cuts, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pandemic, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured • Leave a comment

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/henry-ford-health-to-furlough-2-800-workers.html?utm_medium=email

Henry Ford furloughing 2,800 employees due to COVD-19 financial ...

Financial damage from the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing Detroit-based Henry Ford Health System to furlough 2,800 workers, the health system announced April 22. 

The six-hospital system decided to furlough employees who are not directly involved in patient care after recording a $43 million loss in operating income in March due to the cancellation of elective procedures, temporary site closures, and expenses related to personal protective equipment and other supplies needed to care for COVID-19 patients. The health system expects more significant losses in April and May.

“I know that news concerning furloughs is painful — especially for an organization like ours, whose greatest strength has always been our people,” Henry Ford President and CEO Wright Lassiter III wrote in an email to employees. “We value each team member’s unique contribution and this decision does not change that. But, we must face these realities head on.”

In addition to the furloughs, the health system’s executives and senior leaders will begin contributing 10 percent to 25 percent of their salaries to funds created to support employees.

Henry Ford Health reported a net operating loss of $36.2 million for the first three months of this year, compared to operating income of $39.4 million in the same period of 2019. 

 

 

 

 

Mayo Clinic furloughs, cuts hours of 30,000 employees to help offset $3B in pandemic losses

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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/mayo-clinic-furloughs-cuts-hours-of-30-000-employees-to-help-offset-3b-in-pandemic-losses.html?utm_medium=email

Information for Orlando Residents - Orlando - Mayo Clinic

Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic said it will furlough or cut the hours of about 30,000 staff members to help offset about $3 billion in losses incurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Post Bulletin.

Mayo Clinic announced that it would need to take several cost cutting measures, including furloughs, earlier in April. However, the system didn’t disclose the number of employees that would be affected.

The temporary reduction in workforce is one of the ways the system is working to offset a $3 billion loss from the pandemic. Even with the cost-cutting measures, Mayo anticipates a $900 million shortfall this year.

The furloughs or reduced hours affect about 42 percent of Mayo Clinic’s 70,000 employees across its campuses in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota. 

Affected employees will still receive healthcare benefits.

The furloughs will begin in May and be spread throughout the rest of the year, Mayo Clinic spokesperson Ginger Plumbo told the publication. The duration of the furlough will vary depending on the hospital unit, she added.

The furloughs will not affect physicians at the system, but physicians will receive a 10 percent wage reduction. In addition, senior managers will receive pay cuts of 15 percent and top executives will take a 20 percent reduction.

The furloughs, cut hours and wage reductions are expected to save $1.4 billion.

Mayo Clinic also has been taking other cost-cutting measures, including a hiring freeze and halting major construction projects.

Mayo Clinic is also tapping into its reserves to bring $900 million in cash to the system.

 

 

 

 

Operating margins plummet at US hospitals, Kaufman Hall says

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https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/Kaufman-hospitals-operating-margin-decline/576491/

Third Quarter Investment Report: Moving Into Choppy Waters « CPEA ...

Dive Brief:

  • Operating margins at the nation’s hospitals have plummeted due to large-scale volume and revenue declines coupled with flat to rising expenses, according to a new report from Kaufman Hall.
  • Based on March data from more than 800 U.S. hospitals, average operating margins dropped 150% year over year, plunging non-profit hospitals, which historically operate on already thin margins, into troublesome territory.
  • The data paint a dire picture for U.S. hospitals. “These initial numbers only reflect the first two weeks of the COVID-19 response and likely indicate more negative results in the future,” Jim Blake, managing director at Kaufman Hall, said in a statement.

Dive Insight:

Hospitals depend heavily on elective surgeries for revenue, but had to cancel or postpone many of them starting last month in order to preserve coveted COVID-19 resources such as personal protective equipment, beds and staff.

Those measures have upended the financial health of the entire industry in a matter of just weeks, according to new data and analysis from Kaufman Hall.

“We anticipate April will be significantly worse, and at this point, no one knows how long hospitals will continue on their current path,” Blake said.

Despite the ongoing pandemic, patient volumes overall have plunged. During March, the median hospital occupancy rate was 53%, with operating room minutes down 20% year-over-year and emergency room visits down 15% year over year, according to the report.

At the same time, hospitals’ labor expenses were up 3% year over year, and non-labor expenses were up 1%. In order to rein in operating costs, some health systems have begun to furlough or lay off workers.

While non-profit systems are especially vulnerable given their razor-thin margins, major for-profit systems are also struggling financially.

HCA Healthcare, Community Health Systems and Tenet Healthcare have all pulled their 2020 guidance in response to the pandemic. In its first quarter report Tuesday, HCA attributed a steep decrease in volumes and 45% drop in profit to the pandemic.

And Jefferies analyst wrote in a note Tuesday they are reducing their volume and earnings expectations for those companies for this year and 2021 based on the pandemic. “Our belief is that high unemployment translates to reduced commercial insurance coverage and disposable income to fund co-pays/deductibles, which results in fewer physician visits and procedures,” they wrote.

Under these circumstances, the federal government has attempted to financially support struggling hospitals through ongoing coronavirus relief legislation.

First came accelerated Medicare payments based on reimbursement data, in the form of loans that providers will have to pay back.

Separately, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act passed by Congress in March benchmarked $100 billion in funding to provide financial support to struggling hospitals.

A $30 billion first round was announced April 8 and given to providers based on historic Medicare payments. A second round of CARES act funding for systems in hot spots is next, although the timing is unclear.

On Tuesday the Senate approved a separate $484 billion aid package, the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, that would send an additional $75 billion in emergency funds to hospitals. It also allocates $25 billion to expand testing for the virus across the country.

The White House expressed support for the package. It still needs House approval, which could happen as soon as this week.

The latest package comes in response to depleted funding for the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program. Upon replenishing those funds, smaller health systems may be eligible for forgivable PPP loans used to meet payroll and other operating costs, but only if they have 500 or fewer employees.

 

 

 

 

Cartoon – Job Opportunity

Posted on by • Posted in Cartoon, Employee Benefits, Employee Furlough, Employee Layoffs, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Job Market, Job Search, Job Security, Out of Pocket Expenses, Political Lobbying, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured • Leave a comment

Political Cartoon: “Overheard In The Unemployment Line” by Joel ...