$1.9 Trillion Covid-19 Relief Package

4/6/2021

719,000

The number of Americans seeking new claims for state unemployment rose to 719,000 in the week ending March 27, the U.S. Labor Department reported. The figure was an increase of 658,000 from the previous week’s revised level. Meanwhile, continuing claims, which track the aggregate total of Americans applied for unemployment benefits, decreased from 46,000 to 3.79 million in the week ended March 20. Furthermore, 50 states reported 7,349,663 workers applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), a program for the self-employed and gig workers, the report shows. For the week ending March 20, Massachusetts (11,386), Texas (7,599), Connecticut (4,170), states saw the largest increases in initial claims, while Illinois (55,580), Ohio (45,808), California (13,331) states posted the largest decreases.

1.45M

In the U.S, since the outbreak of the pandemic, the ratio of old-age workers in the workforce has remained at its least level. About 1.5 million over-55-year-olds left the job market due to recession. Aged 55 and above working or seeking work has dropped to 38.3% in February 2021 from 40.3% — this marks the loss of 1.45 million people from the labor force. The percentage of the prime-age workers from 25- 54 dropped from 82.9% in February 2020 to 79.8% in April but has raised 1.3 points to 81.1% in February 2021. As per the government data compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, the working-age population due to retirement pushed up 19.3% in the fourth quarter of 2020 from 18.5% a year earlier before the pandemic.

$15

The U.S economists reported that increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour would help millions of workers and lift some out of poverty. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said in his studies about 1.4 million workers would lose their jobs over the next four years, many of them are teens and less educated people. The unemployment rate between 16- and 19-years old hit almost 32% in April 2020, whereas the overall unemployment rate is 14.8%. But teen unemployment remained at 13.9% in February compared with an overall jobless rate of 6.2%. Nearly a third of teen workers were unemployed last spring. The federal minimum wage is raised gradually by levels from $7.25 an hour to that by 2025.

$2.3T

In order to get the economy back to track after the pandemic hit the Biden administrations signed a $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package. About $2.3 trillion spending proposal would make investments in infrastructure over the coming decade that would improve the economy’s productivity. This proposal includes $621 billion to develop transportation infrastructure, $300 billion to improve the manufacturing industry, $213 billion on retrofitting and building affordable housing and $100 billion to expand broadband access, among other investments. According to the WSJ, the proposal would increase the top corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%. The official reported that the tax provisions would increase $125 billion, or 0.5% of GDP, a year, incorporate revenue over 15 years. They forecast that the plan could add between 0.5 and 1 percentage point to their 2022 GDP growth of 5.2%.

7.1%

The U.S Commerce Department reported that consumer spending was dropped by 1% in February and American’s wages also decreased by 7.1%. As the federal government started the distribution of checks to households as part of a $900 billion corona virus-relief package led to a rose household income by10.1% to the previous month. As per the latest Covid-19 stimulus package of $ 1.9 trillion plan, the government started handing checks for families and $300 per week as compensation for unemployed workers. As U.S. economy vaccination counts pushed up the consumer-confidence index increased to 109.7 in March from 90.4 in February, the Conference Board reported.

11.2%

U.S home prices jumped in January at the fastest pace in more than fifteen years. The National Home Price Index reported that the average home prices in major metropolitan areas across the nation increased 11.2% in January to the prior year — marked the top annual rate of price growth since February 2006. The red-hot housing market which includes mortgage rates decreased by 3% in July for the first time. As the price growth accelerated in all 20 cities, the top price gained 15.8% in Phoenix, Arizona, 14.3% in Seattle, Washington and 14.2% in San Diego, California. The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage increased to 3.2 % last week, the highest since June, up from 3.1 % the week before which is still below the pre-pandemic rate of 3.5%.

53.1%

Elementary school students began to return to their classrooms in Long Beach, California from March 29th. The New York Times reported that the state’s fourth-largest district with 70,000 students allowing 14,000 elementary students back to the school building for about 2½ hours each day, five days a week. The campuses from Los Angeles to Boston are scheduled to reopen for in-person classes which have been closed for more than a year. As per the Burbio’s School Tracker data, 53.1% of students are attending in-person classes daily from around 1200 districts including the largest 200 school districts in the U.S. Middle and high school grades are expected to return to classes from next month, about half of elementary school students more than 16,000 are opting to learn from home.