Worrying signs appeared in the economic outlook Thursday as House Democrats and the White House struggled to come to an agreement on pandemic aid.
Airlines issued tens of thousands of furlough notices to employees Thursday following the expiration of aid provided in the March CARES Act.
The industry is in no condition to support itself. Air travel is running down by about two-thirds from last year’s levels, according to Transportation Security Administration data.
The layoffs are reversible if further aid is extended, executives said, but the prospects for help appeared dimmer Thursday as talks between Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Trump administration officials dragged on without much visible progress.
Meanwhile, the Labor Department reported Thursday that layoffs are occurring at an extremely high pace before the airline layoffs. New applications for unemployment benefits totaled 837,000 last week, about quadruple the pace prior to the pandemic.
And the Commerce Department reported that personal income slumped after the enhanced unemployment benefits provided by the CARES Act expired in August, dipping 2.7%.
“The road to normal looks longer today with pent-up consumer demand reaching the exhaustion phase and high-profile layoffs from major corporations growing every day,” commented Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist for MUFG.
To date, more than 7.2 million COVID-19 infections and over 207,000 deaths have been confirmed in the United States.
New York City has reopened all public schools for in-person learning, becoming the first major U.S. city to do so. Schools were reopened in phases, starting with students in preschool and special education classes last week and elementary and middle schools on Tuesday. Meanwhile, several neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens have reported surges in new cases in recent weeks, which New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo feared could lead to community spread.
Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy also launched a voluntary, anonymous app they hope will aid in coronavirus contact tracing. The app will tell users if they were within 6 feet of a person who has tested positive and if they were within 6 feet of a person who tested positive for at least 10 minutes. Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Delaware also have similar apps meant to help public health officials track new coronavirus cases across the five states.
For the first time since March, the state of Maryland reported on Thursday zero deaths related to the coronavirus.
“This encouraging milestone is a tribute to the incredibly heroic efforts of our doctors, nurses, and health care workers on the front lines, and the courage and perseverance Marylanders have demonstrated in response to this unprecedented challenge,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said in a statement.
The CEO of Pfizer, Dr. Albert Bourla, pushed back at President Trump’s aggressive timeline for a vaccine laid out during the presidential debate. “I was disappointed that the prevention for a deadly disease was discussed in political terms rather than scientific facts,” he said, vowing that the drugmaker would “never succumb to political pressure.”
Joe Biden’s presidential campaign will begin door-to-door canvassing in battleground states after months of avoiding direct contact with voters because of the pandemic, the Associated Press reported Thursday. Democratic officials in key states have grown increasingly worried that Biden has given an advantage to the Trump campaign, which has canvassed door-to-door for months. Biden this weekend will dispatch several hundred volunteers to engage voters across Nevada, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania.
“We’re now expanding on our strategy in a targeted way that puts the safety of communities first and foremost and helps us mobilize voters who are harder to reach by phone now that we’re in the final stretch — and now that Americans are fully dialed-in and ready to make their voices heard,” Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said.
The Trump administration announced Wednesday that the federal government is reducing the cap on asylum-seekers accepted into the country to 15,000, the lowest cap on record, citing the COVID-19 pandemic as a justification.
Italy confirmed more than 2,500 new coronavirus cases Thursday, the first time since April that new cases had exceeded 2,000. Health authorities carried out a record number of tests in the 24-hour period: 118,236, about 13,000 more than the day before.
The French government warned that Paris had exceeded thresholds for putting in a higher-risk category, meaning that in a few days, the city could face a shutdown of bars and restaurants.
