Coronavirus epidemic is wreaking havoc on the nations all across the world, thrashing away the world economy, which will soon result in massive unemployment all across the world. The New York Times has recently quoted some of the remarks made by federal officials in its Twitter handle:
Vacant jobs and high turnover mean the U.S. government is unprepared and ill equipped for what may be the largest public health crisis in a century, many federal officials and disaster experts said https://t.co/D5DJ9HeQIk
— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 26, 2020
To this tweet from the leading news agency, some followers expressed grief and concern and some even retweeted that this unemployment caused due to the lethal COVID-19 fear will quadruple the record of 1982 and the entire world economy will be engulfed by the Coronavirus layoffs. As such, millions of people are already being laid off; some are even being asked to take unpaid leave for an indefinite period of time. Such a crisis will soon transform into a global pandemic of unemployment, all because of the Corona aftermath.
Amidst this COVID-19 crisis, there is good news coming up for all those who have lost their jobs owing to this virus outbreak. The US government has come up with an unemployment insurance program to “provide unemployment benefits to eligible workers who become unemployed through no fault of their own.” To avail such benefits, there is each state’s website that has all the necessary information on how to apply for availing those benefits in this crucial hour of crisis. But unfortunately, there has been so much demand that sites are crashing, and phone lines are being engaged for long waiting times.
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Earlier this week, the unemployment insurance claimed that unemployment case filings had spurt to around 3 million (in fact 3.28 million as per recent updates) in the US that has long surpassed the Great Recession crest of March 2009, which was around 665,000, and around 695,000 unemployment cases in 1982. These counts do not include freelance workers, self-employed owing to their ineligibility for availing unemployment insurance in many of the US states.
Such expanded unemployment-insurance payouts will enable low wage workers to continue to pay their utility bills like house rent, groceries, etc. This sector of the low-wage workers, service-sector workers, and those engaged with industries like restaurants and hospitality management were hit the most by the COVID-19 outbreak. These workers are already struggling to get by with their current payment levels. Further reducing their take-home pay without an inadequate replacement rate would impose extreme hardships on these workers. Therefore, the US government has decided to bring these daily wage earners under the periphery of the unemployment insurance program.
Apart from the federal government, banks and other finance lenders are doing their best to assist people during this crisis period. Now it is time for the people to give the government gratitude in return only through a little cooperation that only demands us to stay at home. To stop this global epidemic from further spreading, lockdown is the only inevitable way, but very few have till now understood the gravity of this global crisis. The government has ordered a lockdown period long before and is also trying to help people in every way possible. For example, the student loan borrowers, have been allowed to put off their federal students’ loan payments without a penalty until September 30th under the Senate Coronavirus bill passed on this Wednesday.
Student loan borrowers would be allowed to put off paying their federal student loan payments without penalty until September 30 under the Senate coronavirus stimulus bill passed late Wednesday. https://t.co/fBU2FQlOjd
— CNN (@CNN) March 26, 2020
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Some of the renowned financial analysts in the US are skeptical of the fact that unemployment may begin showing off again once the global economy comes out of the lockdown period and starts to recover. But it will certainly come down less rapidly than it is going on presently, and will eventually leave deep scars on the global economy.
