Europe
Internal memo reassured Trudeau that virus’s economic hit would be ‘manageable’
18th September 2020The document said government officials analyzed the potential economic damage of Covid-19 by using the 2003 SARS outbreak as a basis for their projections. “The Department of Finance concludes that economic impacts in Canada could be somewhat larger than in 2003, but would still be manageable and would reverse quickly,” said the two-page memo signed […]
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Fed expects to keep rates near zero through 2023
17th September 2020Powell deferred to Congress on the details of any legislation, saying there seems to be an appetite for doing more. But he highlighted the millions of Americans still out of work, as well as the struggles of small businesses and state and local governments. “The economy has proven resilient to the lapsing of the CARES […]
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25 years wiped out in 25 weeks: Pandemic sets the world back decades
16th September 2020“Data from the Ebola epidemic in West Africa suggests that, when schools open again, girls are less likely to return, thereby closing off opportunities for themselves and for their future children,” the Goalkeepers report says. The early signs of that are present in Malawi, for example. Teenage girls living with HIV who have been stuck […]
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Businesses reject Trump payroll tax plan while postponing their own tax bills
15th September 2020As part of the last coronavirus stimulus package, lawmakers agreed to allow employers to postpone paying their share of the Social Security tax for the rest of this year. (The 12.4 percent charge is split evenly between employers and employees, with businesses withholding the tax from workers’ paychecks). Half of companies’ deferred taxes are due […]
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‘A tale of 2 recessions’: As rich Americans get richer, the bottom half struggles
9th September 2020A historic House vote on marijuana legalization will take place later this month. We break down why Democrats are voting on the bill despite the fact that it’ll be dead upon arrival in the Senate. And while the employment rate for high-wage workers has almost entirely recovered — by mid-July it was down just 1 […]
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Trump and Pence try a messaging reboot on economic recovery
8th September 2020“On this Labor Day, it’s important to remember that in the last three years wages were rising at their fastest pace in the last decade,” Pence told workers and their families at a power cooperative near the banks of the Mississippi River. He continued: “I encourage you to keep pressing on. Keep showing the strength […]
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Trump’s rebound story meets mounting bankruptcies
4th September 2020Earlier this summer, Covid cases were dipping and states started reopening. Weeks later, there was a resurgence. Trump is now looking at a repeat of that situation — just two months ahead of the election. “With consumer demand falling, as things get colder and as people don’t want to be outside and begin to feel […]
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Trudeau shifts agenda after summer of scandal
2nd September 2020These are among the issues Trudeau wants to tackle in his long-term recovery plan. In August, he abruptly shut down Canada’s Parliament for five weeks, promising to reset the government’s agenda in a speech from the throne on Sept. 23. Those remarks will trigger a confidence vote his minority government must win to survive. After […]
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Trump tries to dance around a devastating backdrop
1st September 2020The pre-Covid economy was far from the greatest in history, with growth not much different than rates seen under President Barack Obama and far slower than many booming periods since World War II. All the unemployment records Trump boasted about also come from trends that began ten years ago and changed little under Trump until […]
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Economy hurting after Congress fails to act on stimulus
25th August 2020Unemployment insurance added about $25 billion a week to the economy during the four months the additional aid was in place, and now since the expiration of the extra benefit, it’s running closer to $10 billion, former U.S. Treasury economist Ernie Tedeschi said. That’s going to have “devastating individual implications for the families that receive […]
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