4.2 Million Adults Are Not Willing to Work

4/13/2021

744,000

The number of Americans seeking new claims for state unemployment rose to 744,000 in the week ending April 3, the U.S. Labor Department reported. The figure was an increase of 723,750 from 721,250 the previous week’s revised level. Meanwhile, continuing claims, which track the aggregate total of Americans applied for unemployment benefits, decreased to 3.73 million in the week ended March. Furthermore, 50 states reported 7,553,628 workers applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), a program for the self-employed and gig workers, the report shows. For the week ending March 27, Kentucky (16,100), Georgia (14,493), Virginia (10,684), states saw the largest increases in initial claims, while Ohio (14,879), Massachusetts (12,001), Indiana (3,785), states posted the largest decreases.

4.2M

As per the U.S. Census survey, it is found that about 4.2 million adults are not willing to work because they are worried about infecting or spreading with coronavirus and still 15.5% of adults said that either definitely or probably doesn’t get vaccinated. After the pandemic hit American hold only 8.4 million jobs. The economists say that U.S current unemployment rate is low of 6% from 14.8% in April 2020. The percentage of adults either working or looking for work has dropped to 61.5% from 63.3% before the pandemic, a decline of nearly 3.9 million people, the WSJ reported.

17%

Pandemic hit forced the American to swap the physical with the induced technological adoption to make a digital world in a matter of months. So, this could lift economic growth and wages in coming years whereas staving off inflation stress. McKinsey Global Institute analysis of 4,000 U.S. companies’ financials states that enterprise investment pushes up 17% in computer tools, 6% in software, 1% in analysis and growth. On the other hand, GDP dropped by 2.4% in the 4th quarter of the same period. Investment in automation and technology rose 7% from 5% year over year in the third quarter of 2020. About 75% of respondents to a survey of North American and European companies predicted that their funding would speed up in new technology in 2020–24, while more than 55% said that they have risen such spending in 2014–19.

6%

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) accelerated its prediction for global economic growth in 2021 to 6% — this is a rise of 0.5% from the prior forecast of 5.5% growth. It also pushed its predictions for 2022 global growth to 4.4% year over year from 4.2%. In a report, IMF projected that U.S. growth would hit 6.4% in 2021 and 3.6% in 2022, matched for 2021. The GDP in Latin America and the Caribbean is estimated to expand 4.6% up from 4.1% while emerging and developing economies are expected to increase 6.7% up from a 6.3% forecast in January.

$71.1B

The U.S Commerce Department reported that the gap in trade of both goods and services rose to $71.1 billion in February from a revised $67.8 billion a month earlier. Total imports declined by 0.7% to $258.3 billion while exports dropped 2.6% to $187.3 billion — marking the first decline since May. Exports of services dropped by $200 million to $56.1 billion in February from the prior month while imports of services increased by $300 million to $39.2 billion. The value of imported semiconductors was little changed at $5 billion in February, while exports of the chips decreased more than $400 million to $4.8 billion. The merchandise-trade deficit pushes up by 3% to $88 billion, while the nation’s surplus services dropped half a billion dollars to $16.9 billion to its lowest level since 2012.

41%

A new school reopening tracker was developed by the American Enterprise Institute in partnership with the College Crisis Initiative of Davidson College, help to examine which schools offering fully in-person, hybrid, and fully remote instruction. This tracker estimated that about 7 % of the more than 8,000 public school districts being tracked were operating fully remotely on March 22, while 41% of the districts offering full-time in-person instructions. At the beginning of this year, in Ohio about half of the students were in districts that are fully remote were as by March 1 the numbers dropped by 4% and this number still decline further, according to The New York Times.

5.5%

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) planning to increase its predictions for global economic growth for 2021 from a 5.5% expansion projected in January. That would accompany an estimated 3.5% contraction in 2020, the worst peacetime outcome since the Great Depression. The U.S. government promised roughly $5 trillion in stimulus spending since the pandemic began. In January 2021 the IMF estimated that about 5.1% growth in the U.S, but private forecasters have still boosted their predictions to 7% or more, after the March since the passing of a new $1.9 trillion stimulus package.