Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!

Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash

Up until February 2020, Donald J. Trump tweeted a thousand times, if once, that since he was ordained, the U.S. has had the best economy in the world! Historic low unemployment, 3.5%!

Actually, per the U.S. Bureau of labor statistics, the U6 unemployment number was 6.5% — 7% at the end of 2019. The U6 includes the discouraged workers, underemployed workers and part-timers not able to get a full-time job.

That was 24 million of your friends and neighbors.

Then the pandemic hit. The staggering job losses, as of today, is another 34 million people, persons, men and women. Young adults. Your friends, your neighbors. You.

Before the pandemic, 47% of Americans did not have access to $400 to fund an emergency. You and your friends passed the $400 mark $2000 ago.

In March alone, according to the Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, 40% of those making $40,000/year or less had lost their jobs. I wonder what the number is for April?

So far, that’s 57 million people unemployed, total. With this week’s and the next’s, it will top 60 million, 37 or so of that within two months! (1)

The U.S. created 10 million jobs in the 8 years that followed the 2008 crash. Granted, that wasn’t a V-shaped recovery. Mitch made sure that didn’t happen. But it…