(Fighting against New Coronary Pneumonia) Global War Epidemic: Economic Difficulties under the Impact of the US Epidemic
China News Service, Washington, May 9 Question: The economic dilemma under the impact of the US epidemic
China News Agency reporter Chen Mengtong
"The United States is facing political and economic challenges that have never been seen in the past 100 years." "Washington Post" reported on the 8th with such a lead, the United States in April due to the new crown epidemic soared unemployment rate.
On May 7, local time, the Washington Potato Commission of the United States organized an event in Auburn City. Volunteers distributed bagged potatoes to the public. Due to the epidemic situation, these potatoes are facing slow sales due to clogged supply chain.
The US Department of Labor released data that day, the unemployment rate in the United States reached as high as 14.7% in April, and the non-agricultural employment market decreased by 20.5 million jobs. Since President Trump declared a "national emergency" on March 13, the number of Americans applying for unemployment relief for the first time has exceeded 3 million for seven consecutive weeks. Among them, the number of unemployed in one week at the end of March was as high as 6.87 million.
The Associated Press said that the US unemployment rate in April was the highest since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Almost all employment growth in the United States since the 2018 financial crisis has disappeared in the past month.
The debate between isolation and epidemic prevention and the restart of the economy in the United States has never been interrupted. The tension between the two has also been reflected in the number of "historical" numbers born in the past week: the number of new crown infections in the United States has exceeded 1.2 million, and the number of deaths exceeds 70,000 At the same time, the first retail company in the United States declared bankruptcy, and the proportion of the US employment population created the lowest point since the government began collecting data in 1948.
According to data from Johns Hopkins University in the United States, as of 11 pm on the 8th, the number of confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia in the United States has reached 1.283 million people and 77,180 deaths. Among them, 330,000 were diagnosed in New York State, and 135,000 were diagnosed in New Jersey.
From the "melting" of the stock market to the bankruptcy of enterprises, from the manufacturing and retail industry to the catering service industry, in the past two months, the impact of the new crown epidemic has affected all levels of the US economy. Boeing, Macy's, Disney, Tesla, Uber ... The list of layoffs is regardless of whether the company is veteran or emerging.
The "home order" and the epidemic prevention measures that shut down "non-essential" businesses have had a significant impact on the US leisure and hospitality industry. Statistics show that the employment of the US leisure and hospitality industry dropped sharply by 7.7 million in April, a decrease of 47%. Among them, 5.5 million jobs were cut in the catering and bar industries.
Employment in the US retail industry decreased by 2.1 million. Among them, clothing and accessories stores with a cut of 740,000 have the highest proportion. US Crew Mail Order Company (J.Crew) became the first apparel retail enterprise to file for bankruptcy in the epidemic. Two days later, Neiman Marcus, a 113-year-old American high-end department store, also declared bankruptcy.
In order to alleviate the economic impact of the epidemic, the US government has launched two rounds of large-scale economic stimulus plans of US $ 2.2 trillion and US $ 484 billion since the end of March. After the first round of US $ 35 million in loans to small businesses was suspended within two weeks of running out of funds, the United States added another US $ 31 million to the second round of programs.
The ongoing epidemic also tests the resilience of American companies to respond to the crisis. Compared to the gloomy traditional retailers, US e-commerce has ushered in opportunities. American supermarket chain Target said its online sales in the first quarter more than doubled from the same period last year.
Consulting firm McKinsey analyzed that during the epidemic, the ratio of online grocery sales in the United States to total grocery sales is expected to climb to 8% to 10%; in the future, this ratio may stabilize at 5% or 6%.
However, the sharp increase in online orders has also caused the logistics speed of retail giants such as Amazon, Wal-Mart, and Costco to plummet, and even temporarily suspended delivery services due to too many orders. This highlights the shortcomings in the US retail industry's transition to e-commerce.
Also facing the plight of the epidemic is the agricultural processing industry in the United States. Due to over-reliance on large customers such as schools and restaurants, the US agricultural product supply chain cannot be converted into production lines in a short time. As a result, during the epidemic, dairy farmers poured milk, supermarkets "weaned" milk, and egg prices rose by 200%, but farmers had to implement "euthanasia" supply and demand mismatches for chickens.
The US epidemic has not yet entered a clear downward range, but as of the 9th, only 10 states are still in a "closed" state. The remaining states, including California, are already in a partial restart. Even New York State, which had the worst outbreak, announced that it would enter the first phase of economic restart on May 15.
White House economic adviser Kudlow said on the 8th that consultations between the White House and Congress on a new round of economic stimulus plans will be suspended until early June. The middle month will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of previous rounds of economic stimulus.
Compared with the White House shifting the focus of epidemic prevention to restarting the economy, Congressional Democrats put more emphasis on security. Speaker of the House Pelosi said that the current top priority for the United States is to "test, test, and test" and to ensure that funds for anti-epidemic assistance are put into the pockets of the people.
Trump's first domestic inspection tour in the past two months on the 5th sent a signal that he hoped to shift the focus of the US epidemic resistance to economic recovery. During his inspection, he repeatedly emphasized the necessity of an open economy. "The American people should regard themselves as warriors. We must open our economy", "We must open our country, we must open as soon as possible." (Finish)