8 million Americans fall into poverty after Republicans let coronavirus aid expire: study
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Igor DeryshOctober 15, 2020, 10:41 AM Mitch McConnell
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Michael Clubb-Pool/Getty Images
Millions of people have fallen into poverty since May after aid from the first round of coronavirus relief funding dried up, according to two new studies.
The number of people living below the poverty line has grown by 8 million since May, according to a study by researchers at Columbia University. Another study from the University of Chicago and Notre Dame found that the number of people in poverty has grown by 6 million people in just the last three months.
"These numbers are very concerning," Bruce Meyer, the author of the Chicago study, told The New York Times, which first reported the analyses. "They tell us people are having a lot more trouble paying their bills, paying their rent, putting food on the table."
The Cares Act provided Americans hit hard by the pandemic a lifeline. The law provided $600 per week in supplemental federal unemployment benefits, as well as direct payments to most households. But the payments were a one-time deal, and the unemployment boost expired in July.
"The Cares Act was unusually successful, but now it's gone, and a lot more people are poor," Zachary Parolin, one of the authors of the Columbia study, told The Times.
House Democrats passed a $3.4 trillion bill in May to extend the unemployment boost and provide another round of stimulus payments, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., refused to even begin negotiating on a second round of relief funding until late July. Democrats have since come down to $2.2 trillion. With Republicans pushing for a $500 billion bill, or less than a quarter of the funding approved by House Democrats, both McConnell and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin now admit it is highly unlikely that a comprehensive bill will be passed before the election. Analysts also doubt that President Donald Trump will still have a desire to push for additional funding after the election is over.
The studies differ somewhat on how things have gone recently. The job market has partly recovered, which has reduced the number of people relying on government aid. But while the Columbia study found an improvement in September, the Chicago study found that poverty continued to grow last month. Black and Latinx people and children have been particularly hard-hit.
In May, the Columbia study estimated that the government aid kept more than 18 million people from falling into poverty, but that number fell to about 4 million last month.
Millions of people were also shut out by the Cares Act. About a third of unemployed workers still have not received unemployment checks, according to the Columbia study, because many do not know they are eligible or have run into bureaucratic issues when trying to apply. Undocumented workers were also excluded from the aid, and anyone who lives in a household with at least one undocumented person was barred from getting a stimulus payment.
The study further estimated that about 30% of those eligible for the stimulus payments did not receive them, as many Americans were too poor to automatically qualify and had to submit additional information through a web portal.
Black and Latinx individuals were more than twice as likely as white people to fall into poverty, according to the Chicago study. Many Latinx were disqualified by the rules, while many Black people live in Southern states, where standalone state unemployment benefits are especially low.
"It wasn't perfect, but hands down it's the most successful thing we've ever done in negating hardship," H. Luke Shaefer, a poverty researcher at the University of Michigan, told the Times.
"It's really important that we reinstate some of the lost benefits," Meyer added.
Some conservatives have argued that the generous unemployment boost was a disincentive to workers to return to their jobs, but study after study has found that not to be the case. Researchers at the Chicago Federal Reserve, the New York Federal Reserve, the University of Massachusetts, Yale and others all found no evidence that the unemployment benefits had an impact on whether workers returned. The studies did find, however, that cutting off the aid would cripple the economic recovery as the number of unemployed workers was still far higher than the number of job openings.
Families have been pushed to the brink without any additional funding in sight. Michigan mother Jenny Santiago told The Times that she now "trims her meals to feed the children" and facing eviction. California mother Kristin Jeffcoat told the outlet that her family had gone without electricity and have run out of propane for cooking and hot showers.
"To feed the children, Ms. Jeffcoat said she sometimes skips meals, especially at the end of the month when the food stamps have run out," The Times reported. "Her husband sold his tools to buy diapers, and Ms. Jeffcoat tried to sell her eggs to a fertility clinic, but she did not medically qualify."
Making Americans Poor Again
And, making Americans sick and dead.
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Total number of U.S. coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and deaths as of October 15, 2020
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Today the US registered over 71,000 new cases of COVID.
A hell of a lot more people are going to fall into poverty before the pandemic is over.
Compare America's covid-19 history with New Zealand's
Summary
New Zealand's population is 5 million. America's population is 320 million, or 64 times that of New Zealand.
If you compare America with New Zealand using a proper ratio, i.e. multiplying New Zealand's numbers by 64, America would only have had 120,512 cases and only 1.600 deaths.
There is no reason why New Zealand would have learned of the virus any sooner than America did, so there is only ONE reason for the difference, and that reason is TRUMP.
Chery pick much? An island country that never was hit hard seem like fair comparison with an international hub with open borders?
Since France has double the cases the US significantly more cases than the US right now, the difference must be Macron!
So you must believe that Mozambique has better leadership than China, since it reports fewer death per capita than China's made up numbers?
Imagine defending China on Covid after it intentionally covered up the virus and allowed it to be spread to the world, not to mention lies about the number of infections...
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Um, yeah. Let's look at things a bit more realistically.
The first case of the virus in New Zealand was well after a month the first case showed up in the US. So they had the benefit of time and seeing what was happening everywhere else.
It is a relatively remote island nation. It doesn't have borders with other countries with people trying to cross it illegally. Also, it's hardly the transportation hub to the world that the US is.
It also doesn't have states. That means it's centrally governed. One plan for all areas of the country.
They also banned all foreigners from entering the country for a period of time, something the US could not fully do, no matter what, thanks to Democratic policy concerning the border.
Democrats, and democratic municipalities in general, have done little to nothing in preventing protesters from congregating while at the same time castigating Trump for his rallies.
Dems and their media took the pandemic less seriously than Trump did in the beginning.
LOL. Excuses, excuses...you forgot to add that Trump KNEW about the dangerous virus most likely around the time Arden did, and out of his own mouth ADMITTED that he DELAYED doing anything about it, and then did not treat it seriously - as in his words about its disappearing, like a miracle, and it's just like the flu, and look at how he set the example of not wearing a mask. As for your patchwork quilt States theory, was there not unanimity when Pearl Harbour was bombed, or 9/11 happened - well, the virus was a common enemy was it not - it doesn't know or honour State borders. And Trump has been busy isolating America from the rest of the world, and making it just like an island.
New Zealand's Prime Minister did it right and the result she got for it, a landslide re-election victory, is bound to be the opposite of what will happen to Trump.
New Zealand Elections: Jacinda Ardern Wins in Landslide | Time
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China is NOT the topic of this seed, and if I had been the seeder I would have declared it OFF TOPIC. But in reply, I know nothing about Mozambique, but obviously COMPETENT leadership, especially with respect to the virus, won the New Zealand Prime Minister a LANDSLIDE victory.
New Zealand Elections: Jacinda Ardern Wins In Landslide | Time
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I don't DEFEND China, all I do is correct the misinformation and counter the xenophobic accusations of those who use China, as Trump does, to deflect from his negligent incompetence. I don';t need an "O'Donnell Covid manual" that instructs Republicans to "blame Chi na, criticize Biden and support Trump".
Is that what you call facts?
I see. So, when someone points out the obvious flaws in your accusation, you just deflect with statements like this?
I did not deflect - I provided answers to your "facts".
I'm not the only one here who simply cannot fathom your undying loyalty for Trump.
These Trump haters/blamers are never able to point out with facts what Trump has done wrong. Real life situations of a scale as large as this pandemic are never solved or mitigated without some stumbles along the way. I doubt a president HRC could handled it any better. And I really doubt that Biden has some kind of miraculous plan to make it all go away.
We really can't afford to find out what Biden, or more likely Harris, would do.
I'm not the only one here who simply cannot fathom your undying loyalty for Trump.
That's easy Buzz. It's because he's not Biden, or Harris, or any other stinking Democrat.
Many on the left can't comprehend that other very fine people don't share their repressive socialist views. There are millions of us, and we will do our best to keep the radical left from taking over.
But Trump says he saved millions of lives by shutting down travel from China. Was he lying?
Our borders have been shut down since mid MARCH. Hell, there is hardly anywhere in the world where US citizens are allowed to travel without restriction and MOST are closed to us altogether.
Oh and BTFW, some of the countries that DO allow US citizens to enter have State Dept. DO NOT travel advisories.
Your dog don't hunt.
Do you have a point? OR did you just cut and past random words and post them to me again?
They don't address what I wrote.
Our borders have been shut down since mid MARCH
This is funny though. Imagine claiming no foreigners have entered the US since March. I'm sure, if you think about it, you might be able to come up with a way some people entered the country.
The first case of the virus in the south was well over a month the first case showed up in the US.
Your inability to recognize that I DID address what you wrote is on you Sean.
How very xenophobic. THOUSANDS of US citizens returned from Europe on an 'emergent' basis [because of Trump's idiocy] with little to no screening or follow up tracing. Some 40 THOUSAND entered from China to the US AFTER Trump's fake 'ban'. The studies that have documented what little tracing that has occurred in the US have shown that vast majority of the spread the virus here in the US was by CITIZENS and so were the 'patient zero' in the majority of states.
So please DO explain to me why your question is relevant Sean?
LOL. I'm very amused that you used your hero's expression "very fine people" - We all know who HE meant.
Okay, Sean, you argued that New Zealand is an "island nation" and therefore is not a fair comparison to the USA. Then let's talk about Canada, with two borders with the USA, one the longest unguarded border between countries in the world, and unfortuately quite a porous border with the USA, the country with the highest infections numbers in the world. Here is today's news about infections in Canada:
200,000 cases, as compared to America's 8 million cases. So since America's population is about 10 times that of Canada, let's multiply Canada's number by 10, i.e. 2 million cases - whlle America's cases are FOUR TIMES AS MANY. How do you argue with THAT difference? It's pretty obvious that your hero BLEW IT!!! An HONEST person would admit it.
You don't call this a deflection? I state facts and you reply "Trump". I haven't spoken a word about Trump. I simply stated that your statement that the only reason America suffers worse than New Zealand was Trump was in error. It's obvious there were more factors than anything Trump supposedly did or didn't do. But you just keep stating "Trump". Whatever. Can't make a horse drink, right?
Oh? Who said this?
Democrats were the subjects of each of those sentences, not Trump. The point being that Democratic actions can hardly be blamed on Trump.