American nightmare
Writing from Michigan, heartland of the American Dream, Randall Doyle spells out huge problems facing his new president, and not least is unemployment
JOE Biden has been the 46th US president for less than a month. Perhaps, only Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt had entered office under more arduous conditions.
Lincoln had the fastapproaching Civil War with the southern confederacy to contend with as he became commander-in-chief in March 1861. FDR had the worst economic calamity to strike the US, and eight years later the beginnings of World War II to contend with, as he took the oath of office in March 1933.
Presidents Lincoln and Roosevelt showed uncanny leadership and raw courage to save the US from economic, political and societal collapse. And, tragically, both died before the end of their terms. Lincoln was assassinated just after being re-elected in 1864. FDR died of a massive brain haemorrhage just after being elected to his fourth term as president. Most historians acknowledge that the wars and the economic crisis that befell America had taken a devastating toll on the health of both.
Joe Biden is 78 years old. FDR died at 63. Lincoln died at 56. Circumstances and time don’t favour the new president, he is confronted by a hydra-headed monster.
First, he is facing a once-ina-century pandemic. More than 466,000 Americans have died. Thousands will be permanently scarred by the experience. And it is predicted America will have to endure hundreds of thousands more casualties before it is all over.
US medical officials note that only one out of four COVID-19 victims have been properly reported. The vaccine program has been an exercise of breathtaking incompetence and frustration. With new variants arriving from the UK, Brazil and South Africa, the US vaccination program is looking more like a Hail Mary pass at the end of a football game, rather than a medical remedy. Americans pray for the latter. The virus is relentless.
Second, the US economy is cratering. Unemployment is dangerously high and steady. This week, the small business sector appears to be dissolving before our eyes. The business newspapers and cable news channels have reported that one out of every six small businesses in America have closed. Most permanently. Another one out of six are hanging on by their fingernails. Thousands of brick and mortar stores have closed.
More will follow in 2021.
Unemployment is a nightmare that continues to haunt American communities. There appears to be no letting up in 2021. Last week, more than 1.1 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits via state governments or the Pandemic Unemployment Aid program. About 75 million individual Americans have applied for unemployment benefits over the past calendar year.
About 50 million Americans are unemployed, underemployed or have quit looking for a job that pays a living wage. The New York Times published a stunning chart, on January 22, within their Business Section, based on national data that showed the percentage of Americans who receive unemployment benefits in all 50 states, and in the US overall — the numbers are shocking and staggering.
Only 28 per cent of all Americans who apply for unemployment benefits received them. In other words, only about a quarter of the unemployed receive assistance. The corporate media informs Americans that the national unemployment rate is about 6 per cent. Not true. These are the workers who have received benefits, and this figure does not represent the millions denied assistance.
In truth, the national unemployment rate is easily over 20 per cent. Go down any main street, in any small city or town, and all you see is an closed restaurants, clothing stores, and the darkened windows of small business. It is a jolt to one’s sense of reality.
Where I live in Mt Pleasant, Michigan, manufacturers constantly complain they are not able to find workers. Not true. A new and fraudulent employment scheme is being implemented to the detriment of local workers. Initially, these manufacturers have hired workers, but then these newly hired workers find themselves fired or laid-off just before their 90-day probation periods end. Why? Money.
Simply put, the companies do not want to contribute their fair share of unemployment benefits to assist the workers. And they do not want these workers to join the unions that represent their respective workforces. As a result, there is now a growing army of workers at the mercy of this grotesque hiring and firing scam in America.
President Biden confronts one of the most daunting periods in US history. It will take all his willpower to, if possible, turn things around.
President Biden finds himself the leader of a nation traumatised by a year of multiple riots, extensive and systemic unemployment, and an unrelenting pandemic that is quickly approaching a halfmillion dead.
Nevertheless, godspeed, Mr President. Like Lincoln and FDR before you, your journey will be tough going at its beginning, but most Americans and billions of others around the world wish you well. We need you to succeed. Period.