Free Preschool Program

3/30/2021

684,000

The number of Americans seeking new claims for state initial claims dropped to 684,000 in the week ending March 20, the U.S. Labor Department reported. The figure was a decrease of 97,000 from the previous week’s revised level. Meanwhile, continuing claims, which track the aggregate total of Americans applied for unemployment benefits, decreased from 264,000 to 3.87 million in the week ended March 13. Furthermore, 51 states reported 7,735,491 workers applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), a program for the self-employed and gig workers, the report shows. For the week ending March 6, Texas (24,492), Illinois (13,692) and Indiana (4,728) states saw the largest increases in initial claims, while Ohio (12,987), West Virginia (3,321), South Carolina (2,711) states posted the largest decreases.

80,000

Due to the pandemic hit New York City employees are forced to work from home. As vaccinations continue to ramp up New York is reopening for businesses. N.Y.C mayor Bill de Blasio announced that all municipal office workers should be prepared to return to the workplace physically on May 3, 2021. Nearly 80,000 city employees who have been working remotely since the beginning of the pandemic will return back to their workplace in early May. It is reported that the employees do not require any proof of COVID vaccination but include social-distancing, a mask should be worn all the time. About 80% of city workers were reporting to their physical worksites because most of the city employees are considered as frontline workers.

30,000

Ford Motors Co. announced that U.S. employees can continue to work from home forever, allowing more than 30,000 employees to use the office only for meetings and team-building activities or when they need to, even after the pandemic is over. Ford has 186,000 employees worldwide with 30,000 of them in managerial roles in areas such as human resources, information technology and accounting. The company hires another 56,000 hourly workers in U.S. factories and now maintains 65 manufacturing plants worldwide. According to the global study of employers by Willis Towers Watson, nearly half of global employees are working remotely — that’s up from 11% prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

$300M

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio said, New York City is planning to enlarge its free preschool program city wide in September, which will be available for all children across the city. They are going to add 16,500 seats for 3-year-olds to make the total number of children to 40,000 for the 2021–2022 academic years across all 32 districts. The 3K program launched in 2017 with 1,500 students, now it is providing about 23,500 students across 12 school districts and expected to save eligible families about $10,000 a year. It is also said that the city will be using $4.5 billion in federal stimulus funds that the district will soon receive to fund the expansion. The city will allocate an extra $300 million for the expansion, made possible by federal funding.

1.1%

The U.S. Department of Commerce reported that new orders for durable goods dropped 1.1% to $254 billion in February — for the first time since last spring. The increase marked the ninth consecutive monthly gain, followed by a slight decrease in March and April. Economists at the Wall Street Journal forecast a 0.4% increase after an upwardly revised 3.5% rise the previous month and also predicted that the economic growth of 2021 to 5.95%, measured from the fourth quarter of last year to the same period this year. While new orders of nondefense capital goods dropped 0.8% in February to $72.5 billion from last month. As per the latest NAM survey of manufacturers states that new durable goods orders have pushed up 3.2% over the last 12 months.

6.6%

In the U.S sales for previously owned homes was decreased more than expected in February. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that existing home sales dropped by 6.6% in February from the previous month to a seasonally-adjusted rate of 6.22 million annualized units, which was pushed up 9.1% in February 2020. The supply of homes for sale dropped 29.5% year over year, the greatest annual decline ever, to 1.03 million homes. The median existing-home price increased 15.8% in February from a year earlier to $313,000, NAR said. Sales of homes worth above $1 million were 81% higher compared with a year ago. Houses worth between $100,000 and $250,000 dropped 11%.

300,000

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the U.S hit the lowest birth rate level 1% between 2018 and 2019. The birth rate in the United States has dripped each year since 2014, the agency reported. According to a study by Brookings Institution, it’s predicted that about 300,000 new babies are expected in 2021. From 2018 to 2019 the birth rate between 15 to 19 years dropped by 4%, while 20 to 29 ages declined by 2%, only aged 40 to 44 years has seen an increase of 2% in birth rate over two years. As per the data, only 3.75 million births were registered nationally in 2019 from 3.79.