New York’s Plague Year Economy: Reopening Into Recession or Recovery?

THE CURRENT JOB OUTLOOK

Regional Labor Review Spring/Summer 2020

New York’s Plague Year Economy: Reopening Into Recession or Recovery? by Gregory DeFreitas

The COVID-19 crisis has exposed deep weaknesses in the American health care system and worsening structural inequalities in its economic system. Even after nearly $3 trillion in government aid, millions of jobs have been lost that may not be fully regained for years. At the initial epicenter of the crisis in New York, improving health measures have led to a cautious reopening. But the pandemic’s cost here in lives and jobs has been truly devastating. And the recent resurgence of infections in most other states threatens to slow or derail broad economic recovery for the foreseeable future. In what follows I will try to provide a straightforward summary of the national and local economic damage so far, the main government policy actions to date, and proposals aiming for recovery late this year and into 2021. Though infections from a novel coronavirus were identified abroad in late 2019 (hence the disease is dubbed COVID-19), the first few travel-related cases in the U.S. only became widely known in early February. By late June the country’s known infections reached 2.6 million and the COVID-19 death toll passed 127,000. Beginning March 19th in California, nearly all states had issued orders for residents, other than essential workers, to stay home within the following two weeks. The lockdown’s economic impact was immediate, causing 1930s levels of job loss. In an economy that had added new jobs for a recordbreaking 113 consecutive months, March brought a staggering decline of -1.4 million jobs, followed by a breathtaking plunge of another -21.7 million lost in April. That is, in just those two months, the country lost all the 22 million net new jobs it had accumulated over the past decade. From March through June, over 40 million Americans filed new applications for unemployment benefits. The official unemployment rate nearly quintupled to 14.7% in April and the number of unemployed jobseekers quadrupled to 21 million – the biggest monthly increase in government records going back to 1948. In fact, as the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported those numbers, it admitted that the number unemployed was likely a big undercount. Many newly jobless workers on unemployment benefits were misclassified as “employed, but temporarily absent from work.” Had they been correctly listed as “unemployed on temporary layoff,” the April unemployment rate would have risen by another 4.8 percentage points, to a near-depression level 19.5%. 1

With widespread industry shutdowns shrinking hiring chances, the labor force participation rate fell. As a result, the official unemployment rate, which only counts jobseekers, understated the full extent of hardship. But the broader underemployment rate (what the BLS calls U-6) nearly tripled to 22.8%. And, once corrected for the undercount of the unemployed noted above, the rate would soar above onefourth of the labor force. All industries have been hurt, with the largest impacts in leisure, hospitality entertainment and retail trade. High-profile bankruptcies in the latter now include old, established name brands like Brooks Brothers, J. Crew, J.C. Penney and Neiman Marcus. All were ailing in recent years, but the pandemic dimmed recovery plans and pushed them over the edge. Many less well-known retailers, plus countless bars, restaurants, movie theaters, and sports venues find themselves suddenly thrust into similarly dire straits. Whether they can hold on into the autumn will depend both on the course of infections and on whether government aid is continued or shut off as scheduled.

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NYC

Figure 1. Unemployment Rates in U.S., NYC & Long Island, 2019-2020 (% monthly, seasonally adjusted)

16

US

14

12

Long Island 10

8

6

4

2

0 A

M

J

J

2019

A

S

O

N

D

J

F

M

A

M

2020

Why is EU Unemployment Lower? While other advanced economies have been hit by the same pandemic, some have weathered it without nearly so much unemployment as the U.S. In April, the peak month for new Covid-19 cases in the 2

European Union, its average jobless rate (6.6%) was less than half the U.S. rate. And in Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands it was below 5% (Table 1). Since April, the rate of new cases has fallen steadily in the EU, in sad contrast to the June case upsurge in the U.S. Why does the European record tend to be so much better than the US or Canada? Aside from the exceptional case of Sweden, with its risky refusal to lockdown most firms, a key factor is wage subsidy policy. When economic shocks hit, governments first respond through wage subsidies to those employers who commit to keeping their employees on payroll. This approach has the advantage of keeping the work force attached to the most recent employer and ready to quickly return to work there once economic conditions improve.2 Far from a purely left-wing policy, this approach has also been followed in the UK – even as its Conservative government is formally breaking away from the EU. A related approach to downturns in some countries is job sharing, where full-time employees reduce their work hours enough to save the jobs of more junior colleagues. In contrast, the US initially left understaffed state unemployment benefits offices with the impossible task of processing a sudden flood of millions of newly jobless. The pandemic lockdown will end with most of these unemployed cut adrift from their former employer and facing daunting months in job search. Though the CARES Act included wage subsidies in the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), we can see now that they were at first too limited and poorly administered to prevent mass layoffs. Table 1: International Unemployment, April 2019-2020 U.S., Canada & Western European Nations Unemployment Rate (%) April April country U.S. Canada Japan S. Korea European Union Denmark France Germany Italy Netherlands Portugal Sweden

2020

2019

14.7% 13.0 2.6 3.8

3.6% 5.7 2.4 4.0

6.6 4.6 8.7 3.5 6.3 3.4 6.3 7.9

6.4 5.3 8.7 3.2 10.2 3.3 6.7 5.9

source: OECD Short-term Labour Force Statistics (2020): https://stats.oecd.org. Limited to countries with available April data. Harmonized country rates.

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Essential Workers At Risk Of those Americans still employed throughout the spring, the lockdown has made it clearer than ever how much Americans’ daily survival depends on frontline workers, toiling in often dangerous, low-paid jobs. The health care workers who tend virus victims and the farm labor, meatpacking workers, grocery store employees and deliverers who have kept Americans fed are disproportionately Blacks, Latinos and Asians, many of whom are immigrants or their children.3 They are well aware of the risks they face to do their jobs. A recent Washington Post survey asked a sample of people working away from home in mid-May whether they were concerned about their exposure to the virus at work and worried they might spread it among their family members. Half of whites said that they did, but the anxiety level was much higher among Blacks (68% concerned) and Hispanics (72%).4

Ditmas Park, Brooklyn mural, May 2020 (Photo Credit: Regional Labor Review)

According to the most comprehensive available study of federal data on U.S. cases, Latinos and African-Americans are three times as likely to become infected and twice as likely to die as whites.5 They are not only disproportionately at risk on their frontline jobs, but also more likely to lack health insurance or live in areas without high-quality hospitals and clinics. For example, in New York City, two out of three people confirmed to have died by Covid-19 lived in zip codes with incomes below the citywide 4

median. And among Covid cases, the death rate in the hospitals serving those neighborhoods averaged twice that in Manhattan’s five big private hospital centers.6 The latter were far better staffed and better equipped with the anti-viral drug remdesivir.7 Despite the extra risks they take each workday, most essential workers are not being offered extra, hazard pay. A national survey of 2100 adult voters in May asked those working outside the home at their usual workplace about their current compensation. Just 40% of Blacks and 33% of Hispanics replied that they were receiving any extra pay or benefits.8 Frontline workers and a number of labor organizations have fought back, demanding adequate personal protective equipment (PPE), hazard pay and union organizing rights. Walkouts at Amazon warehouses, Whole Foods stores and Instacart locations, and union organizing drives at Trader Joes, Uber and Lyft have captured the most media attention so far. Employers have mostly tried to quash unrest by increasing PPE supplies, firing protest leaders and holding captive audience meetings to condemn unions. But there have been some notable victories. For example, SEIU 1199, the influential health-care union, has won hazard pay agreements for thousands in the NYU and New York Presbyterian hospital systems.9 Starting April 24th in Alaska and Georgia, states in the South and Midwest led a gradual, industryby-industry reopening. By midnight May 20th, all 50 states had begun at least a partial reopening. After trillions in government stimulus aid, the initial impact of the reopening was reflected in the May employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The net number of new jobs jumped 2.5 million since mid-April, nudging the unemployment rate down a full percentage point to 13.3% in May. Over half the new jobs were in the hard-hit restaurant industry and another 368,000 were new retail jobs. And three-fourths of the unemployed told surveyors that they were on “temporary layoff,� expecting (rightly or not), to be rehired by a former employer. Still, 2.5 million was only 12% of the jobs lost the previous month and the underemployment rate remained historically high at 21.2%. While rehirings have lowered the number of people recorded as temporary layoffs, increasing numbers of others say that their previous jobs have permanently disappeared. Racial, ethnic, and educational inequalities in unemployment have become even more pronounced in the process. The official jobless rate of whites (12.1%), quadrupled since the same time last year (Figure 2). But it remains well below that of Asians (14.8%), Blacks (16.5%) and Hispanics (17.2%). The black jobless rate is the highest since the 1983 recession, when it hit 19.9% that May. The lower, but still double-digit rates of whites and Asians are all at record-breaking highs for each racial/ethnic group.10 5

Figure 2. U.S. Unemployment Rates, by Age, Race/Ethnicity, Educ. & Occ., May 2019-2020 35.0 30.7

Unemployment Rate (%, nsa)

30.0 23.6

25.0

20.0

17.2

16.5

17.1 15

14.8 15.0

12.8

12.1 10.0

7.2

5.9 5.0

3.0

3.7

6.6 4.0

3.3

2.3

2.0

4.1

1.7

0.0

2019

2020

Periods of high unemployment historically inflame racial and anti-immigrant animosities. The ongoing national protests against police brutality toward African Americans have effectively highlighted the persistence of broad discriminatory forces against them. The pandemic has also sparked increasing acts of bias against Asian Americans. The Anti-Defamation League has recorded numerous hostile acts nationwide and 30% of English-speaking Asians polled in a national survey had racist encounters in recent months. The ADL criticizes President Trump for encouraging such bias through his frequent depictions of COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus” and “kung flu.”11 Both the very young and the very old have been hit hard. A staggering 31.7% of job-seeking teenagers and 23.2% of those ages 20 to 24 are unemployed. While Americans 25 and older had a far lower May jobless rate of 11.3%, even that rate is the highest for that age group since consistent recordkeeping began just after World War II. Victims of age-old “last hired, first fired” practices, youth also suffer the higher layoff rates hitting workers without college degrees, who are less able to work remotely. As the chart shows, only 7.2% of those with at least a bachelors degree were unemployed, less than half the rate of high school grads with no college. 6

Older workers are also at high risk, and not only for death via virus. As more industries have begun reopening, some employers have used the pandemic furloughs as an opportunity to permanently replace experienced, better-paid employees with new cheaper labor. In response, pro-worker legislators in Baltimore, Boston, Los Angeles and other cities have introduced bills to require rehiring by the seniority of the furloughed employees.12 The harm to America’s 21 to 26 million unemployed goes beyond their painful earnings losses. Unlike nearly all advanced European and Asian economies, health insurance here is still mostly tied to one’s job. So, job loss too often also means loss of affordable employment-based insurance. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation study, as of May 2nd, 27 million Americans were at risk of losing employersponsored health insurance due to layoffs. Thanks to Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare) many of these have been able to shift from employer plans to Medicaid. However, the Trump administration has continued its push to persuade the Supreme Court to rule the entire ACA unconstitutional. Such a ruling would likely slash coverage rates for millions of lower-income jobless cut off Medicaid. And it would enable insurance companies to return to their pre-ACA practice of refusing health plans to even middle-income people with pre-existing conditions – like a case of Covid-19. Though many who are laid off are temporarily eligible to keep their employer policies via COBRA, they lose their employer’s contribution to premium payments. This makes coverage prohibitively expensive for many. On average, the total annual cost of employer-sponsored health coverage offered by firms of 20 or more in 2019 was $7,012 for single coverage and $20,599 for family coverage.13 In fact, most states, especially in the South and Midwest, reopened without even having met the voluntary guidelines set by the White House. And a significant minority in these areas resisted even wearing masks or social distancing in public. Nevertheless, the White House celebrated with a Wall Street Journal article claiming: “There Isn’t a Coronavirus ‘Second Wave.”14 Bad timing. One week later, a record-breaking new increase in infections swept Florida, Georgia, Texas and other parts of the sunbelt. By late June, infections were multiplying in four out of five states and new cases were exceeding 50,000 per day. By comparison, the US (population 332 million) now has 10 times as many new confirmed COVID-19 cases per day as the entire European Union (population 445 million).15 The alarming upsurge in cases here, especially among the young, has led some cities and states to begin a partial rollback of their reopening plans, to make masks mandatory in public places and to close bars, gyms and restaurants with indoor dining. 7

Fig. 3: Unemployment Rate (%), NYC & 20 Other Largest Metros, May 2020 25

Unemployment Rate, %

20

23.7

19.1 15.3 15.2 15.1 14.9

15

13.9 13.6 13.4 13.3 13.1 12.7 12.3 11.2 11.2

10

10.4 10.4 10.3

9.5

9

8.3

5

0

New York Metro Area At the early epicenter of the country’s pandemic, New York City and Long Island led the state and the nation in infections and deaths from the virus. On March 16th, all schools were shut until further notice, forcing parents of its 1.1 million public school students to scramble into providing child care and home schooling. One week earlier, led by Columbia and Hofstra, universities began cancelling in-person instruction and shifting to all-online classes. A statewide order for residents to stay at home began the evening of March 22nd, when Gov. Cuomo put the state on “Pause.” Tragically, even with these measures, the April death rate in the city was nearly six times higher than its historical average.16 In May and June the number of new cases flattened, then fell sharply. By the end of June, New York City had recorded 220,000 COVID-19 cases and over 22,500 deaths (17,500 confirmed deaths due to the virus and at least another 5,000 probably COVID-caused). In its first month, the city’s lockdown caused a job plunge of -843,000, from mid-March to April – an 18.3% decline. Industry-by-industry job loss stats show that no sector has been immune (Figures 4 and 5). Tourist and entertainment-based jobs have taken the biggest absolute hit: After two record-breaking years in which the number of visitors to New York jumped from 65 million in 2018 to over 67 million in 2019, this year was projected to exceed 69 million. About one-fifth of all the city’s visitors have been higher-spending foreign visitors, over one million each from Canada, China and Great Britain. Two dozen 8

new hotels (+4,000 new rooms) opened here in 2019 and another 118 were in the development/construction pipeline this winter.17 But tourism is one of the hardest-hit sectors. The city’s hotel occupancy rate, averaging 84.4% in March 2019, plunged to 30.6% this March.18 Although some hotels had rising occupancy and revenue in the following two months, this was largely due to temporary bookings for emergency medical personnel travelling here to help fight the pandemic. One large Midtown Manhattan hotel, the Omni Berkshire Place, has already shut operations and permanently laid off 268 employees. As hotel room revenue declines, so also do hotel taxes collected by City Hall. Given the importance of the hotel tax in the city’s budget, this alone has opened up a huge budget gap. The single largest monthly job loss was in the leisure and hospitality sector, where closure of bars, restaurants, cafes, hotels and a wide swatch of cultural and entertainment facilities cost 317,600 jobs (67% of the entire industry). Over 117,000 positions were lost in education and health services (-11%); 107,000 in professional and business services (-5.6%); and 81,400 in retail trade, led by clothing and furniture store layoffs that cut payrolls by one-fourth. Three-fourths of NYC jobs lost were in so-called “face-to-face” industries, such as education, entertainment, hospitality, non-food retail, restaurants. These are also the lowest-paid jobs in the city, on average: only one-third earn $40,000 or more per year. Compare that to the 42% of essential industry workers (government services, grocery and drug stores, health care) above that income level and 73% of professionals and others able to work remotely (finance, insurance, management, professional, scientific).19 The spring labor market hemorrhaging ended in May with the addition of 20,000 net new jobs. But such feeble 0.5% growth still left its May payrolls -881,000 lower (-19%) than in May 2019 (Table 2).

Table 2: Number of Nonfarm Jobs: New York City, Long Island & All U.S., 2019–2020

U.S. NY State NYC Long Island

(in thousands, not seasonally adjusted) May 2019May April May April 2020 2020 2019 2019 Net Chg 133,342 131,071 151,109 150,430 -17,767 8,048.7 7,889.4 9,829.1 9,784.5 -1,780 3,777.0 3,756.9 4,657.5 4,648.7 -881 1,106.3 1,056.6 1,358.7 1,348.8 -252

% Chg -11.8 -18.1 -18.9 -18.6

Table 2 Source: Establishment survey data from US Department of Labor. Note that data reflect regular revisions by Dept. of Labor.

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With the job engine downtown sputtering, business revenue and employment in nearby suburbs shared comparable pain. In its first month of lockdown, Long Island establishments counted one-fifth fewer jobs – a loss of -261,000 by April. Unlike the city, Long Island employers were able to start reopening a bit sooner and recorded much faster April-May job growth: a net addition of 39,000 jobs (+3.7%). However, the magnitude of the task ahead is clear from Table 2’s 2019-2020 comparisons: island payrolls this May are still a quarter million jobs below where they were at the same time last year. In the overall New York Metro Area, these massive layoffs drove unemployment up from just 4% in February to 15.3% by May. Figure 3 compares it to the 20 other largest metropolitan areas. NY Metro’s rate was exceeded only by two other infection hot spots: Detroit and Los Angeles. In the city, the seasonally adjusted jobless rate more than tripled to 14.2% in April, then kept rising sharply to 18.3% in May. The preliminary June figure is even higher: 20.4%. These are record-breaking monthly rates in nearly a half-century of NYC joblessness stats. As in the national figures, racial disparities are painfully evident in the likelihood of joblessness in New York City. As of February, just before the crisis began unfolding, working men and women of all the major racial and ethnic groups averaged unemployment at or below 5%. As one can see in Table 4, even in that period of historically low unemployment, African American and Hispanic New Yorkers were more than twice as likely as whites to be jobless. The lockdown caused a five-fold jump in jobless rates by May: to 11.8% among whites, 23.5% among Blacks and 25.1% among Hispanics.20 The Asian rate was driven up even more to 25.6% -- over seven times their pre-lockdown rate. A gender gap also opened up: 18.1% of female New Yorkers are now unemployed, compared to 21.5% of men. Sharply rising unemployment drove higher shares of men and women out of the city’s labor force, across all racial and ethnic groups. In May, the fraction of adults reporting no job and no active job search rose to 37.7% of men and 53.6% of women. This is unsurprising, given the absence of jobs to search for during lockdown, as well as new health concerns that were keeping many from travel or meetings with employers. And research on past, far milder recessions has found a strong “discouragement effect” for potential jobseekers when faced with wage and hours cuts at many employers.

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Table 3: Civilian Labor Force, Employment & Unemployment (in thousands, not seasonally adjusted)

Labor Force

Employed

Unemployed

Unemp. Rate

May

May

May

May

May

May

May

May

2020

2019

2020

2019

2020

2019

2020

2019

AREA U.S. NYS NYC Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Staten Island

157,975 9,063 3,655.5 551.1 1,076.4 781.5 1,051.1 195.4

162,655 9,457 4,052.5 593.8 1,193.7 908.8 1,134.9 221.3

137,461 7,774 2,992.0 432.3 880.5 674.2 841.9 163.1

157,152 9,112 3,897.5 563.6 1,146.5 877.6 1,096.8 213.1

20,514 1289.1

5,503 345.1

13.0% 14.2

3.4% 3.6

663.5 118.8 195.9 107.3 209.2 32.3

155.0 30.2 47.2 31.2 38.1 8.2

18.2 21.6 18.2 13.7 19.9 16.5

3.8 5.1 4.0 3.4 3.4 3.7

LONG ISLAND Nassau Co. Suffolk Co.

1,470.5 700.8 769.6

1,479.0 705.8 773.2

1,290.7 616.5 674.2

1,431.8 683.6 748.2

179.8 84.3 95.4

47.2 22.2 25.0

12.2 12.0 12.4

3.2 3.1 3.2

Table 3 Source: CPS household survey data from NYS Dept. of Labor. Data reflect their regular revisions.

Table 4: NYC Unemployment & Labor Force Non-Participation Rates, by Race, Hispanic Origin & Sex: Feb-May 2020 Unemployed (%) Characteristic Whites Blacks Asians Hispanics Men Women

Feb 2020 2.0 4.6 3.4 5.2 3.5 3.5

May 2020 11.8 23.5 25.6 25.1 21.5 18.1

Not in Labor Force (%) Feb 2020 35.4 40.0 38.1 42.4 31.0 45.1

May 2020 42.5 52.6 49 45 37.7 53.6

source: NY Dept. of Labor & NYC Comptroller

Government Policies The federal government’s response to news of spreading infections was slow and disjointed. After more than a month of inaction, Congress and the White House were put under massive pressure in midMarch as one state after another shut schools and places of business in a national lockdown. The two main federal economic policies enacted so far have been the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) and the CARES Act. 11

The FFRCA was made law on March 18th and had two main components: (1) “Emergency Paid Sick Leave” and (2) “Emergency Family Medical Leave.” All employers with under 500 employees are required to provide any quarantined or Covid-positive worker up to 80 hours of sick leave at his/her regular pay (up to a max $511/day). For all employees not themselves ill, but caring for family members who are either Covid-positive or unable to attend their regular school or child care center, the law mandates up to two weeks of family leave at two-thirds the employee’s regular pay (up to a max $200/day). And those working for their employer at least 30 days are entitled to up to an extra 10 weeks of paid family leave at two-thirds their regular pay level. The federal government reimburses employers for these wages through tax credits. Family leave exemptions are available for small employers (under 50 workers) who claim their business viability is threatened by the law. And the fact that only smaller firms with payrolls under 500 are covered means that over half of US employees are left out of the law’s benefits.21 The fact that, even in a deadly global pandemic of uncertain duration, American lawmakers could only agree to require two weeks paid leave for a minority of working families is consistent with longstanding conservative hostility to expansion of the country’s thin safety net. The U.S. stands alone among advanced economies in lacking laws to mandate minimum annual paid sick leave, parental leave or vacation time. Many EU nations require four to five weeks paid vacation each year and heavily subsidize their pre-K and child care systems. The U.S. has long been regarded there as a “no-vacation nation,” with only fragmented private sector child care offerings funded largely by parental fees. Coronavirus immediately threatened to collapse these costly child care arrangements, as care centers closed and parents were unable or unwilling to rely on caregiving by grandparents or extended family members now forced to social distance.22 With their children sent home from school and day care centers all spring, both employed and unemployed parents suddenly faced daunting new child care and home-schooling demands. Among them are the one in five college students who are parents of children under age 18. More than two-thirds have incomes at or near the poverty level. Even those without added job responsibilities have had to balance their own studies with new demands for child care and home schooling.23 In New York State, domestic workers caring for the elderly or people with disabilities have been listed as essential workers, as have child care workers employed by other essential workers. And with child care providers worried about exposing themselves to the virus in strangers’ homes, the National Domestic Workers Alliance has advised nannies to stay home unless they care for children of essential workers.24 Less than 10 days after passing the FFCRA, with the virus spreading rapidly, Congress passed the 12

largest economic stimulus package in U.S. history: the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES). The principal components of the 880-page law were: •

A one-time “recovery rebate” payment of up to $1200/person sent to qualifying individuals (up to $99,000 annual income) and married couples (up to $150,000 annual income; eligible families also received $500 per child under age 17). It is in the form of a refundable credit on 2020 personal income taxes. Total cost: $292.4 billion;

•

An extra $600/week added to the state unemployment insurance benefits (UI) received by jobless workers. The UI supplement was set to end July 31st;

•

Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) extended the $600 benefits supplement to many of those unemployed who were not covered by traditional UI: the self-employed, independent contractors and socalled gig workers. Undocumented immigrants are ineligible, as are most H-1B, J-1 and L-1 visa holders;

•

Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) – the Small Business Administration was tasked with administering this new $349 billion program of funding small business loans (through the private banking system). Principal and interest on the loans will be forgiven (tax free) if all employees are kept on payroll at their pre-pandemic wage level. PPP loans must be spent within eight weeks of a borrower receiving the funds, and only on payroll, mortgage interest, rent and utilities Various limitations have gradually been spelled out by SBA, such as: the payroll maximum eligible for loan forgiveness is $100,000/employee; non-payroll costs can account for no more than 25% of the forgivable amount of a PPP loan.

•

Main Street Lending Program – the Federal Reserve was allocated $75 billion from the US Treasury to cover any losses in setting up a new lending facility. The Fed announced it would provide up to $600 billion in low-cost, four-year loans to mid-sized businesses (under 15,000 employees). The program took three months to get started, only making its first loans in early July.

•

Airline bailout of $29 billion to passenger and cargo air carriers, aviation repair services and ticket agents. Recipients were required to delay major layoffs until at least September 30th;

•

Millionaire’s Giveaway (formally: “Modification of Limitation on Losses for Taxpayers Other Than Corporations”): This widely overlooked tax dodge ends limits on the amount of business losses that can be applied to cancel tax liability for one’s other non-business income. Most glaring is the fact that the tax breaks are retroactive, covering 2018-19, before Covid-19 arrived. According to Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation: “82 percent of the benefits of the policy go to about 43,000 taxpayers who earn more than $1 million annually.” The beneficiaries, mostly hedge funds and noncorporate real estate owners, will.average tax savings of $1.7 million. And unlike the Paycheck Protection Program, there are no strings attached to limit layoffs or employee pay cuts or otherwise benefit the other 99% of Americans. The estimated cost is $135 billion – nearly 30% of the CARES Act’s total revenue loss.25 It was inserted in the CARES Bill by Sen. Charles Grassley (Rep, Iowa), who denounced criticisms of his provision as “class warfare.”26

•

Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund allocated $14 billion to universities and colleges for pandemicrelated administrative costs and financial aid for students.

•

Child care funding: only $3.5 billion was allocated to help those centers still in business reconfigure facilities and purchase protective equipment. For additional support to keep their doors open, providers were told to line up with millions of other applicants for short-term financing from the Paycheck Protection Program.

The initial $349 billion in funds for a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was supposed to be targeted 13

loans for small business (executed through private commercial banks). But the understaffed Small Business Administration (SBA) lacked the computer or human resources to effectively roll it out quickly. And many banks rejected applications from small businesses that were not long-time customers. The largest, most credit-worthy firms made sure they were first in line at participating banks and the initial funds were exhausted within 2 weeks. Which businesses and regions won these forgivable loans? A study by economists at the New York Fed found that New York, Michigan and others hardest-hit by coronavirus were far less likely to have PPP loans approved than some in the Midwest and South. Only one-fifth of applications by New York businesses won PPP loan approval, compared to one of every two Nebraska businesses. The report concluded: “there is no statistically significant relationship between the severity of the economic impact of COVID-19— measured both in terms of cases and unemployment claims—and the share of small businesses getting PPP loans, after excluding New York and New Jersey.” 27

Public exposure forced some large corporations granted these loans to return the funds, including AutoNation (a Fortune 500 corporation) and large chains like Shake Shack And the high loan demand led Congress to pass new legislation (the Paycheck Protection and Health Care Enhancement Act) on April 24th in order to expand PPP by another $320 billion. PPP was scheduled to expire June 30th, with a surplus of $132 billion not loaned out. The White House signed off on extending the loan application period to August 8th, and borrowers now have the rest of 2020 to spend their PPP money and still qualify for loan forgiveness. As of late June, which New York businesses received PPP loans and how much per job saved? A preliminary study of SBA data found: 277,012 loans below $150,000 were issued and 46,888 loans above that level. Of the latter, restaurants got $1.3 billion, saving 109,000 jobs. The one billion dollars lent to law firms saved another 42,000 jobs. Loans to physicians’ offices and home health care services saved 54,000 and 71,000 jobs, respectively. But the report found striking cross-industry inequalities in the loan amounts per job saved. For example, restaurants and home health firms received under $10,000 per job, but computer services, engineering and law firms received over twice as much. And it reported further that: “The dataset shows that 5,800 large loans claimed to save zero jobs—though the data may have inaccuracies or not be up-to-date. About 50 companies that got $5 to $10 million show zero jobs retained at all.”28 14

And a July report by the NYC Office of the Comptroller argued that the city was shortchanged by the feds. It found that only 12% of the city’s employers were approved for PPP loans, well below the rate in parts of the country still far less impacted by coronavirus.29 REOPENING NY All of upstate New York was able to begin reopening by May 20th. But the hardest-hit areas of New York City and Long Island were only able to begin the process later. After over two months shutdown, Long Island started its Phase One reopening on May 27th and New York City followed on June 8th. Nonessential employment was permitted to restart in construction, manufacturing wholesale trade and much of retail trade. The latter are limited to curbside or in-store pickup or drop off at stores selling: books, clothing, electronics, flowers, furniture, general merchandise, health and personal care, jewelry, lawn and garden supplies, luggage, musical instruments, office supplies, shoes, sporting goods, and used merchandise. All newly reopened businesses are required to post a workplace safety plan, regularly clean and disinfect work areas, distribute free face masks and hand sanitizer and maintain social distancing. Industry-specific details are at: forward.ny.gov.30

2020 Reopening Phases – NYC/Long Island Metro In each phase, reopened establishments are expected to enforce state guidelines for social distancing and protective masks on employees and customers, to close waiting rooms and limit walk-in customers.

PHASE 1

[started May 27 on Long Island; June 8 in NYC]

Reopening of low-risk businesses involved in construction, manufacturing and wholesale trade, agriculture, fishing, forestry and hunting, and select retail (curbside & in-store pickup or drop-off).

PHASE 2 [started June 10 on Long Island; June 22 in NYC] Reopening of businesses in professional services, finance and insurance, administrative support, outdoor restaurant service, personal services like barber shops and hair salons, real estate, rental and leasing, and retail stores with external entrance doors independent of a general mall entrance. Other mall retailers, indoor on-premise bars, restaurants, movie theaters, museums, physical fitness centers and most places of public amusement remain closed.

PHASE 3 [started June 24 on Long Island; July 6 in NYC] Reopening of personal services not already opened in Phase 2 (ie., non-hair-related personal care businesses and services, including tattoo facilities, massage therapy, spas, cosmetology, nail specialty, and tanning services); & selected court proceedings. Postponed opening indoor service at restaurants.

PHASE 4 [started July 8 on Long Island; July 20 in NYC] Reopening of most schools, art galleries, sports, zoos & entertainment, other than malls, gyms, movies, museums and theaters. Postponed opening indoor service at bars & restaurants

15

Long Island began its Phase 2 reopening two weeks later. Phase Two finally allowed the region’s large number of restaurants to try to start recouping months of lost revenue, but only with outdoor tables. Since the reopening began, the Island’s unemployment – while still far above pre-pandemic levels -- has followed a gradual downward path so far. Initial claims benefits, a leading indicator of trouble ahead, for UI are elevated, but have been falling until reaching a plateau in mid-June. With the city’s health metrics continuing to show slow improvement, it was approved to start Phase 2 on June 22nd. To add sidewalk room for more widely spaced tables, the city launched an Open Restaurants initiative that has closed 60 miles of roadway to car traffic on weekends. As of mid-July nearly 9,000 city restaurants had reopened with sidewalk dining. However, many small businesses that managed to hold out to early summer may not last long. In June, the city’s Office of the Comptroller conducted a new survey of 500 minority and women-owned business enterprises (M/WBE). When asked if they expected their business to survive the next six months, a startling 85% answered “No.”

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Mayor de Blasio announced in early July that the public school system would have only a partial reopening in Fall 2020. Student attendance will be limited to one to three days per week per student, to provide adequate social distancing in uncrowded classrooms for its 1.1 million pupils. Many other school districts nationwide have also announced plans for a hybrid approach that will mix in-school classroom learning with online coursework. This understandable health measure means that parents will still face the challenge of providing child care every two to four weekdays, thereby constraining the employment options for most. RECOVERY PROSPECTS & PROPOSALS What does the near future hold for working families jobs and livelihoods? All major economic forecasts, whether by government agencies or independent academics, now expect that 2020 will be a year of deep recession, followed by a partial recovery in 2021. As of early July, the Congressional Budget Office expects a -5.9% shrinkage of the national economy this year – twice as bad as in the Great Recession of 2008-09.32 But the Federal Reserve warns that the current recession will be that much “more severe and protracted” should the pandemic begin a full “second wave” in coming months. Whether 2021 shows gradual recovery depends on the course of the pandemic, the distribution and duration of antibodies and prospects for a vaccine, as well as local and national political decisions. If the current surge in new cases continues, if spending on travel, restaurants and in-person entertainment remains weak, or if school reopen on partial or all-online fall classes, the recession may deepen this fall and continue well into the 16

following year or two. Some large employers are already warning they will re-evaluate staff needs at summer’s end. Thus, United Airlines says it may cut up to 36,000 positions by October 1st if passengers keep staying away. The federal airline bailout, that gave United about $5 billion, required that recipient firms delay major layoffs until at least September 30th. In the New York Metro Area, the Independent Budget Office (IBO) expects the city to end this year with one-half million fewer jobs. That will cause personal income to decline -1.6% in 2020, before starting a week recovery (+1%) the following year.33 The jobless rate in 2021 is projected to average 10.9%. As gloomy as all such projections are, they assume Congress will continue expansionary fiscal and monetary policies, regardless of the outcome of the November elections. Without federal aid and progress ending the pandemic, the job and income picture could get much darker Slow growth and double-digit unemployment in the city may also constrain the recovery of Long Island Westchester and other suburban areas partially dependent on the economy downtown. And the pandemic’s plunging sales, income and property tax revenues will force painful spending cuts and layoffs on many levels of government. The longer that the area’s relatively dramatic reduction in COVID-19 cases persists, the better the chances it can start to again attract some of the 67 million foreign and domestic tourists so important to the economy in recent years. But NY Governor Cuomo, worried that a second wave of infections will “seep back” into New York, has ordered travelers from 22 states to quarantine for 14 days on arrival here. Sensible as the order might be from a health standpoint, it will be difficult to enforce and may delay the revival of the local tourist industry. Nonetheless, the industry’s central organization, NYC & Co, recently issued a hopeful new report.34 It is mounting a 3-phase campaign, dubbed “All In NYC,” to first revitalize New Yorkers’ interest in patronizing local cultural and entertainment venues this summer. One test case will be the planned reopening of the giant Metropolitan Museum of Art in mid-August. Depending on how positive the public response is to this summer’s programming, the autumn months will be devoted to luring out-oftowners back to a safer, mostly reopened city. Of course, with Broadway, concerts, movie theaters and bars all shuttered and sporting events postponed or played in empty arenas, such a revival faces tall odds. “Child Care Crisis Threatens Plans for the Recovery” warned the New York Times front page headline on July 11th. And this fear is certainly well-founded should the region’s schools adopt the partial reopening now planned. With students splitting their week between two or three days in school, the rest online at home, child care demands on working parents could well limit their labor force participation. Global comparisons may offer some lessons. Many schools reopened in April and May in Belgium, 17

Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Norway and Switzerland. All still have far lower viral infection rates than the US today. Early research suggests that they have benefited from not only masks and social distancing, but also from stronger public health systems better able to lower community rates of infection to well under US levels.35 With the pandemic resurgent and summer deadlines approaching for supplementary unemployment benefits and PPP small business applications, Congress and the White House have been under increasing public pressure to act. On July 1st, the House of Representatives passed the Health and Economic Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act (HEROES). It seeks to extend key elements of CARES, plus expand some benefit coverage and target hazard pay and other benefits to essential workers. The HEROES Act’s principal components are: •

Extend the “Emergency Paid Sick Leave” and the “Emergency Family Medical Leave” mandates of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act through December 2021;

•

Extend the $600 UI supplementary benefit from August through December. Extend the PUA coverage of the self-employed and gig workers through March 2021;

•

A second, one-time “recovery rebate” payment of up to $1200/adult sent to qualifying individuals (up to $99,000 annual income) and married couples (up to $150,000 annual income; eligible families also receive up to $1200 per dependent (up to three dependents). HEROES would both increase the maximum dependent benefit from the earlier $500/person, and expand eligible dependents to include older family members;

•

Health insurance assistance for those laid off during the pandemic: The federal government would pay COBRA insurance premiums for qualified workers through January.

•

Paycheck Protection Program would be extended and its coverage expanded to include nonprofits.

•

Federal aid to State & Local Governments & US Postal Service ($1 trillion) Unlike the federal government, which can run massive deficits for anti-recessionary spending like CARES, nearly all states and cities must somehow balance their annual budgets. With their tax revenues devastated by a global pandemic, they will be forced to heighten the public’s pain through massive service and job cuts – unless the federal government provides at least $500 billion in loans and other support. The US Postal Service, already facing revenue declines has been further stretched by costs of protective equipment for their workers. Financial assistance for these sectors will also disproportionately protect jobs of African American workers. State/local governments and the Postal Service employ nearly 2.6 million black workers.36

•

Heroes’ Fund -- $200 billion “to ensure that essential workers who have risked their lives working during the pandemic receive hazard pay.” Health care workers and first responders, including police and 18

firefighters among essential workers, would be eligible for $13-per-hour pay bumps up to $10,000 (on top of their regular salary). The pay would be last until 60 days after the end of the emergency. Employers would not be permitted to offset the raise by cuts in any other pay or benefits because of this. •

Child Care Assistance for Health Care and Emergency Services Workers: $7 billion would be allocated to cover operating costs of child care centers and licensed home care providers;

•

Public Health Workforce Loan Repayment Program: a student loan forgiveness contract between the government and current and recent public health college students. For each year of full-time employment at a public health agency in a priority area of the country, the government pays off a student’s loan up to $35,000;

•

Disability (and Death) Benefits for Public Safety Officers diagnosed with COVID-19 from January 20, 2020, until one year after the coronavirus emergency period is declared over.

•

PPE Funding for Firefighters and Police Officers: $1.3 billion for FEMA to purchase PPE, conduct mental health evaluations and trainings and for hiring and retaining firefighters and additional career law enforcement officers.

•

Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to childless low-wage workers;

•

End permanently the “Millionaire’s Giveaway” tax cuts of the CARES ACT (formally: “Modification of Limitation on Losses for Taxpayers Other Than Corporations”) described above;

In the Republican-led Senate, its foes have raised a common right-wing argument that benefits remove incentives for job search by unemployed workers. But the evidence since March suggests strongly that households have overwhelmingly used their extra unemployment benefits to both cover crucial expenses and pay down past debts. This helps explain why, despite consumer debt at record levels after years of paycheck paralysis, personal bankruptcy filings have moved surprisingly little so far in the lockdown.37 So, the Congressional Budget Office recognized that: “the supplemental benefits are a key reason the economy has begun to bounce back — as seen in a jump in retail sales in May. There is little evidence in national economic data so far to suggest wide swaths of workers are choosing to remain unemployed. The law that created the supplemental benefit prohibits Americans from continuing to receive the money if they are recalled to their regular jobs by employers that laid them off but refuse to return.”

Congressional supporters of extended supplementary UI benefits have responded to critics with new compromise proposals to adjust extra benefit levels as job prospects improve. For example, Democratic Senators Schumer (NY) and Wyden propose a state-by-state linkage of UI to unemployment rates in each state. Supplementary benefits would drop by $100 when each state’s jobless rate fell below 11 percent, and by another $100 each time the rate dropped by another percentage point, until the rate hit 6 percent. Criticism of a few elements of the House bill comes from those on the left who are trying to avoid 19

the public funding a “rich man’s recovery.” In particular, the expansion of PPP benefits to nonprofits includes the 501(c)(6) trade associations that lead lobbying efforts in Washington on behalf of Big Pharma, Big Tech, Agribusiness and other powerful corporate giants.38 Critics are trying to influence Senate supporters to exclude such political organizations in the final compromise legislation. In addition to the HEROES Act, on July 1st, the House passed the Moving Forward Act (HR 2) to allocate $1.5 trillion to planning and construction/repair of roads, bridges and other physical infrastructure projects. Since Republican senators and their president have, even during the low unemployment years 2016—19, claimed to be eager to create even more jobs through such projects, the hope is that today’s massive joblessness will finally spur rapid and decisive action. Whenever such expensive new legislation is proposed, concerns arise about the impact on the federal government’s debt load. In 2009-2010, as the Obama administration sought to stimulate the economy out of the Great Recession, both establishment and new “Tea Party” conservatives angrily opposed further stimulus and demanded austerity, claiming fear of higher annual deficits. Yet, after Republicans won the White House and Congressional majorities in 2016, the first major new legislation they passed was a massive income tax cut that disproportionately benefitted the wealthy and large corporations. The 2017 Tax Act was projected to have small job growth benefits, but to explode government debt by $1.5 trillion over the following ten years. So in today’s crisis, with corporate tax rates and interest rates at historic lows, bold stimulus measures are both affordable and essential to combat the pandemic and build a robust and fair recovery. Gregory DeFreitas is Professor of Economics at Hofstra University and Director, Center for the Study of Labor and Democracy.

REGIONAL LABOR REVIEW, vol. 22, no.2 (Spring/Summer 2020). © 2020 Center for the Study of Labor and Democracy, Hofstra University

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Figure 4 NYC Job Changes by Industry: May 2019 – May 2020 (in thousands of jobs, & % change) 0 -6.6% -17.3%

-4.9%

-50

Govt -100

-25.7%

-4.9%

-25% -55.5%

Wh. Trade

TWU

Manf.

Const.

Info

FIRE

-23.7% -13.6%

Retail

-11%

-150 Profsnl Srvcs

Jobs

Educ+ Health

-200

-250

Leisure + Hospitality

-300

-67% -350

Figure 5 Long Island Job Changes by Industry: May 2019 – May 2020 (in thousands of jobs & % change) 0 -8.8%

-10

Info

-11-6% -20

-6.9% GOVT

-20.4%

-30

-17.3%

Wholesale Trade

-6.2%

Manf. FIRE

-35..4%

-12.9%

Constcn. TWU Jobs -40 -50

-21.3% Retail

Prfsnl Srvcs

-12.6% Ed+ Health

-60 -70 -80

Leisure+ Hospitality

-56.3%

.Figs 4-5 Source: NYS Dept. of Labor: nonfarm payroll job data from CES establishment survey in Nassau & Suffolk counties. Year-to-year changes, not seasonally adjusted. Note: FIRE = Finance, Insurance & Real Estate; TW U= Transport, Warehousing & Utilities.

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APPENDIX TABLE

WHO ARE “ESSENTIAL WORKERS�? NY State List in Coronavirus Emergency (5/02/2020)39 A. individuals who are, or were, during the current state of emergency, employed as health care workers, first responders, or in any position within a nursing home, long-term care facility, or other congregate care setting, including: o o o o o o o o o o o

correction/parole/probation officers; direct care providers; firefighters; health care practitioners, professionals, aides, and support staff (e.g., physicians, nurses, and public health personnel); medical specialists; nutritionists and dietitians; occupational/physical/recreational/speech therapists; paramedics/emergency medical technicians; police officers; psychologists/psychiatrists; and residential care program managers; and

B. individuals who are, or were, during the current state of emergency, employed as essential employees who directly interact with the public while working, including: o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

animal care workers (e.g., veterinarians); automotive service and repair workers; bank tellers and other bank workers; building code enforcement officers; childcare workers; client-facing case managers and coordinators; counselors (e.g., mental health, addiction, youth, vocational, crisis, etc.); delivery workers; dentists and dental hygienists; essential construction workers at occupied residences or buildings; faith-based leaders (e.g., chaplains and clergy members); field investigators/regulators for health and safety; food service workers; funeral home workers; hotel/motel workers; human services providers; laundry and dry-cleaning workers; mail and shipping workers; maintenance and janitorial/cleaning workers; optometrists, opticians, and supporting staff; retail workers at essential businesses (e.g., grocery stores, pharmacies, convenience stores, gas stations, hardware stores); security guards and personnel; shelter workers and homeless support staff; social workers; teachers/professors/educators; transit workers (e.g., airports, railways, buses, and for-hire vehicles); trash and recycling workers; and utility workers. 22

NOTES 1

In mid-May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics added five pandemic-related work questions to its monthly Current Population Survey. Survey results will not be published until late summer. 2 Saez, Emmanuel and Gabriel Zucman “Jobs Aren’t Being Destroyed This Fast Elsewhere. Why Is That?” NY Times (3/30/2020). 3 Hubler, Shawn, et al., “Latinos Bearing Heavier Burden in the Outbreak,” NY Times (6/27/2020). Note that the categories “essential workers” and “frontline workers” vary in composition across different reports. Some include police, firefighters and transit employees, but others do not. For the detailed NY State components, see Appendix 1 below. 4 Dorman, Peter and Lawrence Mishel, “A Majority of Workers are Fearful of Coronavirus Infection at Work, Especially Black, Hispanic and Low- and Medium Income Workers,” EPI Brief (6/16/2020): www.epi.org. 5 Oppel Jr., Richard, et al. , “The Fullest Look Yet at the Racial Inequity of Coronavirus” NY Times (7/05/2020). 6 NewYork-Presbyterian, which has Weill Cornell and Columbia University Irving Medical Center; NYU Langone; the Mount Sinai Health System; Northwell Health; and the Montefiore Medical Center. 7 Rosenthal, Brian, et al., “Why Surviving the Virus Might Come Down to Which Hospital Admits You,” NY Times (7/01/2020). 8 Dorman and Mishel, ibid.. 9 Greenhouse, Steven, “‘Stop throwing us bare bones’: US union activism surges amid coronavirus” Guardian (5/06/2020). Greenhouse, Steven, “Workers fight back as hotels try to lay off staff and hire on the cheap,” Guardian (7/09/2020). 10 Consistent monthly BLS unemployment rates are available for each group from the following start dates: whites (1954); blacks (1972); Hispanics (1973); and Asians (2000). Hispanics are categorized as an ethnic group, regardless of race. 11 Anti-Defamation League, Reports of Anti-Asian Assaults, Harassment and Hate Crimes Rise as Coronavirus Spreads (6/18/2020): www.adl.org.; Ruiz, Neil, et al., “Many Black and Asian Americans Say They Have Experienced Discrimination Amid the COVID-19 Outbreak,” Pew Research Trends (7/01/2020). 12 Greenhouse, Steven, “Workers fight back as hotels try to lay off staff and hire on the cheap,” Guardian (7/9/2020). 13 Garfield, Rachel, et al., Eligibility for ACA Health Insurance Coverage Following Layoff, (5/13/2020): www.kff.org. 14 Vice-President Mike Pence, “There Isn’t a Coronavirus ‘Second Wave.’” Wall Street Journal (6/16/2020). 15 Coronavirus Data Explorer, Daily New Confirmed Covid-19 Cases (7/01/2020): https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-dataexplorer 16 McCann, Allison, Jin Wu & Josh Katz, “How the Coronavirus Compares With 100 Years of Deadly Events,” NY Times (6/10/2020). 17 NYC & Company, Hotel Development in NYC (1/2020): nycgo.com. 18 NYC & Company, NYC Hotel Occupancy, ADR & Room Demand: 5-Year Trend Report (4/20/2020): nycgo.com. 19 Parrott, James & Lena Moe, The Covid-19 NYC Economy Three Months In (6/2020): www.centernyc.org. Earnings are 2014-18 averages from the American Community Survey. 20 NYC Office of Comptroller, The NYC Employment Situation in May (June 2020): https://comptroller.nyc.gov. 21 For details on the FFCRA’s coverage and provisions, see: US Dept. of Labor, “Families First Coronavirus Response Act: Employee Paid Leave Rights” (4/2020): www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/pandemic. 22 See the recent video of “Care Work in the Covid Crisis,” a forum presented by Hofstra U.’s Labor Studies Program, Jobs With Justice & ALLOW at: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=reopening+long+island+and+building 23 Institute for Women’s Policy Research, “Student Parents in the Covid-19 Pandemic: Heightened need & the imperative for strengthened support” (April 2020): www.iwpr.org. 24 Hand In Hand, How to be a Fair Employer During the Covid-19 Crisis: NY Tool Kit (3/27/2020): https://domesticemployers.org/how-to-be-a-fair-employer-during-the-coronavirus-crisis-in-ny/ 25 Ziv, Shahar. “How Some Rich Americans are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7 million,” Forbes (4/14/2020); Kristoff, Nicholas, “Crumbs for the Hungry but Windfalls for the Rich,” NY Times (5/23/2020); Congressional Budget Office, Provisional Estimate of the Economic Effects of HR 748, the CARES ACT (4/27/2020). 26 Grassley, Charles, “Coronavirus-damaged businesses providing over half of US jobs deserve tax break,” Fox News (4/17/2020). 27 Liu, Haoyang and Desi Volker, “Where Have the Paycheck Protection Loans Gone So Far?” Liberty Street Economics (5/06/2020): www.libertystreeteconomics.nyfed.org. 28 Pereira, Sydney, et al., “How Were $38 Billion In PPP Loans Distributed In New York?” Gothamist (7/10/2020). 29 NYC Office of Comptroller, The Failures of the PPC in NYC (7/15/2020): https://comptroller.nyc.gov. 23

30

For useful employee resources on workplace safety during the pandemic, see: the NYC Dept. of Consumer and Worker Protection site: www1.nyc.gov/site/dca/workers/worker-rights.page; and the CLD website: www.hofstra.edu/academics/colleges/hclas/cld/cld-papers.html. 31 NYC Office of Comptroller, Minority and Women-owned Businesses at Risk: The Impact of Covid-19 (7/11/2020). 32 Congressional Budget Office, An Update to the Economic Outlook: 2020 to 2030 (6/2/2020): www.cbo.gov. 33 Independent Budget Office, “Tumbling Tax Revenues, Shrinking Reserves, Growing Budget Gaps,” Focus on the Executive Budget (May 2020): www.ibo.nyc.ny.us 34 NYC & Co., All In NY: The Roadmap for Tourism's Reimagining & Recovery (7/2020) 35 Belluck, Pam, et al. “How to Reopen Schools: What Science and Other Countries Teach Us,” NY Times (7/11/2020). 36 Brown, Hayley and Dean Baker, “Black Workers’ Jobs Matter,” Newsday (6/24/2020): www.cepr.net 37 Walsh, Mary, “Federal Aid Has So Far Averted Personal Bankruptcies, but Trouble Looms,” NY Times (7/17/2020). 38 Perez, Andrew, “House Democrats’ HEROES Act Is a Huge Giveaway to the Rich,” Jacobin (5/20/2020). 39 NYS Dept. of Health, Insurance Circular Letter No. 10: Coronavirus & Mental Health Services for Essential Workers (5/02/2020): https://www.dfs.ny.gov/industry_guidance/circular_letters/cl2020_10

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