US faces biggest job crisis since Depression; Trump may reopen economy soon

Business Standard
Dated: April 24, 2020
By: BS Web Team and Agencies 
US President Donald Trump has favoured safe and phased reopening of the American economy, which has been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 50,000 people and infected over 800,000. More than 95 per cent of the country's 330 million people are under stay-at-home order as a result of the social mitigation measures including social distancing till May  1.
Trump on Thursday indicated that this might be extended beyond May 1, but forcefully advocated the need to gradually open up the economy that is safe.
In the past few weeks, more than 26 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits and the figure is soon likely to cross 40 million. Unemployment in the US is swelling to levels last seen during the Great Depression of the 1930s, with one in six American workers thrown out of a job by the coronavirus, according to a data quoted by the Associated Press.
Both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have projected a negative growth in the US in 2020.
"To keep America gaining momentum, every citizen needs to maintain the vigilance, and we all understand that very well we've gone over it many, many times this includes practising good hygiene, maintaining social distance, and the voluntary use of face covering," he said.
"Safe and phased reopening of our economy it's very exciting, but it does not mean that we are letting down our guard at all in any way; on the contrary, continued diligence is an essential part of our strategy to get our country back to work to take our country back," Trump added.
Congress has delivered a nearly $500 billion infusion of coronavirus spending, rushing new relief to employers and hospitals buckling under the strain of a pandemic that has claimed almost 50,000 American lives and one in six US jobs. Anchoring the bill is the Trump administration's $250 billion funding request to replenish a fund to help small and medium-size businesses with payroll, rent and other expenses.
t also contains $100 billion demanded by Democrats for hospitals and a nationwide testing program, along with a $60 billion set-aside for small banks and an alternative network of community development banks that focus on development in urban neighbourhoods and rural areas ignored by many lenders. There's also $60 billion for small-business loans and grants delivered through the Small Business Administration's existing disaster aid programme.
President Donald Trump celebrated the bill's passage at his daily White House briefing Thursday.
Meanwhile, a public health official of the Trump Administration has said that sunlight, heat and humidity can create conditions that are less favourable for the spread of coronavirus. The results of a just-concluded scientific study conducted by the Science and Technology Directorate of the US Department of Homeland Security, announced during a White House news conference on coronavirus, could be good news for India in its fight against Covid-19.

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