Speaker 1: Hi, Ruin. I'm Katie Kuric, and welcome to Next Question Today.
Speaker 1: With widespread shelter and place order shutting down major cities
Speaker 1: and many states, the US economy has come to an
Speaker 1: abrupt standstill and one week in March, jobless claims jump
Speaker 1: by three million, and after just five weeks, this COVID
Speaker 1: crisis has forced more than twenty six million Americans to
Speaker 1: file for unemployment. Hi. My name is Megan Guasory and
Speaker 1: this is um my story. I live in a suburb
Speaker 1: of Boston, Massachusetts, and I was furloughed from my job
Speaker 1: on March nine. Hi. My name is Nicole Daniel UM
Speaker 1: from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I was informed at the
Speaker 1: beginning of April they, due to the economic downturn associated
Speaker 1: with coronavirus, the field marketing team that I'm a member
Speaker 1: of with being eliminated. Hi. My name is Bart Nelson
Speaker 1: and I am from St. Louis, Missouri. My husband was
Speaker 1: laid off from his company after fifteen years. It has
Speaker 1: been difficult, and you know, neither one of us have
Speaker 1: ever lost our jobs before, so this is this is
Speaker 1: all new road for us. Hi. My name is Nancy Rasmussen.
Speaker 1: I lost my job at Macy's. I live in Delaware,
Speaker 1: and right now, that seems to be the least of
Speaker 1: my problems. Throughout today's episode, we'll be hearing from some
Speaker 1: of the people behind these unprecedented numbers. But first let's
Speaker 1: get some context on what makes them so unprecedented. Most
Speaker 1: of the estimates for the unemployment rates in April will
Speaker 1: be around the lines of right, and at the peak
Speaker 1: of the Great Depression, unemployment was maybe if you count
Speaker 1: all the people that were in work relief programs as unemployed.
Speaker 1: At the height of the Great Recession, we reached ten
Speaker 1: percent unemployment. So we're at the very start of this
Speaker 1: crisis and we're already seeing numbers that are accomparable to
Speaker 1: the Great Depression. Victor tan Chen is assistant professor of
Speaker 1: sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University. He studies labor markets, unemployment,
Speaker 1: and social inequality. He's the author of the book Cut Loose, Jobless,
Speaker 1: and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. He told me he's
Speaker 1: never seen anything like this. The other thing, too, is
Speaker 1: that the Great Depression, Great Recession, those are financial crises,
Speaker 1: or at least they started as financial crises, and we've
Speaker 1: had a lot of experience dealing with financial crises, and
Speaker 1: we've kind of developed strategies in terms of monetary and
Speaker 1: fiscal policy to deal with them. This is like uncharted
Speaker 1: waters for us in terms of dealing with a pandemic
Speaker 1: where the economy has to shut down in order for
Speaker 1: it to save itself later on. Right, this is a
Speaker 1: new kind of phenomenon, and so we're trying to figure
Speaker 1: things out as we go policy wise, which leads me
Speaker 1: to my next question, how will the coronavirus pandemic change
Speaker 1: our economic futures? When we talk about unemployments and unemployment policy,
Speaker 1: timing is everything right, and and the speed by which
Speaker 1: this is happening is really concerning because we need to
Speaker 1: get support to these households right away, because what we
Speaker 1: know from unemployment is that its spirals and spirals in
Speaker 1: terms of its psychological family and economic consequences. Victor tan
Speaker 1: Chen says, all this can put a tremendous strain on relationships,
Speaker 1: and the longer this goes on, the more dire the
Speaker 1: financial consequences. If we're going to stop some of those
Speaker 1: negative outcomes from a current, we need to introduce immediate relief,
Speaker 1: and we and you know, to its credit, Congress past
Speaker 1: legislation really quickly to deal with that and to top
Speaker 1: up some of the benefits for unemployment. Unfortunately, many states
Speaker 1: have been slow to provide that aid, and so we
Speaker 1: we see in many states a huge backlog in terms
Speaker 1: of benefits, and the expansions that were supposed to help
Speaker 1: on these precariously employed workers like gig workers haven't even begun.
Speaker 1: So I think timing is really essential in this to
Speaker 1: prevent the crisis from spiraling out of control. Some of
Speaker 1: the hardest hit sectors of the economy, like leisure, hospitality,
Speaker 1: and the service industry, tend to employ people without college degrees,
Speaker 1: people of color, immigrants, and those already living on less,
Speaker 1: making this unemployment crisis particularly unfair. The Federal Reserve said
Speaker 1: in two thousand seventeen that you know, four and anten
Speaker 1: Americans did not have enough money. It's saved up to
Speaker 1: cover a four hundred dollar expense of four h indre
Speaker 1: dollar emergency. And so you have a large second population
Speaker 1: that is already living paycheck to paycheck, and suddenly this happens,
Speaker 1: devastating the sectors where they're concentrated in and uh, that's
Speaker 1: leading to a lot of hardship that hopefully government policies
Speaker 1: can ameliorate to some extent, but it's unsure how long
Speaker 1: that support will last. There are also so many small businesses.
Speaker 1: Now small business owners are in one category, but the
Speaker 1: people who work for small businesses, they've also been hard hit,
Speaker 1: have they not? Yes, And that is a major problem
Speaker 1: right now, is that, uh, you know, the small businesses.
Speaker 1: There are main street businesses, restaurants and bars and you know,
Speaker 1: various establishments. They don't have the kind of reserves to
Speaker 1: you know, weather the storm of this economic crisis, and
Speaker 1: so you're seeing them lay off their workers, you know,
Speaker 1: rather than keeping them on. Now there's some supports, you
Speaker 1: know that the government has provided to kind of keep
Speaker 1: that payroll going for a bit, but you know, access
Speaker 1: to that has been spotty so far. And I imagine
Speaker 1: what we'll see is a lot of these businesses failing
Speaker 1: and a more consolidation in those sectors where Amazon or
Speaker 1: Walmart or someone whoever already really devastated you know, main
Speaker 1: streep America in terms of these small businesses taking more
Speaker 1: and more of the share of those markets. There's also
Speaker 1: the precarious workforce that you describe as people who are
Speaker 1: doing jobs that don't have much security or have part
Speaker 1: time jobs, so they're not counted in the unemployment figures
Speaker 1: and they don't have benefits. So tell us about this
Speaker 1: whole segment of the workforce that you term precarious. We're
Speaker 1: talking here about workers who don't have the kind of
Speaker 1: long term, full time employment that we associated with jobs,
Speaker 1: typical traditional jobs, right where there's some kind of implicit
Speaker 1: contract between employers and workers that you know that they
Speaker 1: will stay there for a long time and and and
Speaker 1: and work years at a particular company that has disappeared.
Speaker 1: And you have instead a lot of workers who are
Speaker 1: just working on gigs. Maybe they're classified as independent contractors.
Speaker 1: They do certain projects for an employer, and then they
Speaker 1: basically have the conditions of being real employees in terms
Speaker 1: of how their work is dictated and and manage. But
Speaker 1: the employers don't have to pay them benefits, don't have
Speaker 1: to have any long term relationship with them, can get
Speaker 1: rid of them whenever they want to. And so you
Speaker 1: have increasing segment of the population about ten according to
Speaker 1: some measures, that are fall into this category of either
Speaker 1: you know, freelancers by choice or these kind of independent contractors.
Speaker 1: Uh not involuntarily because companies have decided they don't want
Speaker 1: a full time, a long term relationship with them. So
Speaker 1: you have this segment of the population that has been
Speaker 1: growing in recent years. And and gig workers like the
Speaker 1: uber drivers and uh insta cart delivery people and so
Speaker 1: on are a segment of this, but that don't really
Speaker 1: have much in the way of protections or strength within
Speaker 1: their bargaining positions in the labor market. And part of that,
Speaker 1: too is the client of unions that used to provide
Speaker 1: a voice for these workers and kind of negotiated the
Speaker 1: full time, long term employment contracts of the past that
Speaker 1: have disappeared now that unions have dwindled to a faction
Speaker 1: of their former selves. Christ and Trump boasted about how
Speaker 1: strong the economy was prior to the crisis, And I
Speaker 1: know unemployment was low, but does that tell the whole story. No,
Speaker 1: because what we have seen in recent decades is a
Speaker 1: lot of folks have simply dropped out of the labor market,
Speaker 1: dropped out of the labor force. Uh, they're no longer
Speaker 1: looking for work in recent weeks because perhaps they've just
Speaker 1: given up on finding a decent job anymore than said
Speaker 1: they go on disability benefits or some of them have
Speaker 1: gone back to school. But that's a small percentage of
Speaker 1: the group that is uh, really what we're looking at
Speaker 1: of of prime age workers who are suddenly out of
Speaker 1: the labor force. And we actually saw before of the
Speaker 1: COVID crisis, we saw some of the lowest rates of
Speaker 1: labor force participation since the nineteen seventies, right, So we
Speaker 1: had this problem beforehand of large segments of the population,
Speaker 1: including prime age men, who had dropped out, and by
Speaker 1: some measures, their rates of participation in the economy were
Speaker 1: as low as they were at the tail and the
Speaker 1: Great Depression. Right. So that's the kind of invisible crisis
Speaker 1: that we had because those individuals aren't counted for in
Speaker 1: our unemployment statistics, right. They they've dropped out of labor markets. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're not looking in the last four weeks for work,
Speaker 1: which is how we define the unemployed. And so we've
Speaker 1: had this kind of hidden problem that was masked by
Speaker 1: the increases in the stock markets and and the low
Speaker 1: unemployment rates and so on. And it's also related to
Speaker 1: things like the opioid crisis that has been going on
Speaker 1: as well. Um, you know, there's just a lot of
Speaker 1: economic despair that is concentrated in working class communities, many
Speaker 1: of them are white communities in America's heartland that have
Speaker 1: seen a loss of those good, pain often unionized jobs
Speaker 1: that were the backbone of the American middle classrooms so
Speaker 1: long and that have disappeared. So we need to also
Speaker 1: recognize that these trends have been going on for quite
Speaker 1: some time, even before the crisis. When we come back,
Speaker 1: how jobs will forever change after COVID and who might
Speaker 1: be left behind? No financial crisis, no recession has hit
Speaker 1: the US this hard or this suddenly, and the impact
Speaker 1: of the economic tsunami caused by the coronavirus is likely
Speaker 1: to reverberate through the labor market long after COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: leaves US, if it ever does. But Victor tan Chen
Speaker 1: says it's not just a question of when the economy
Speaker 1: will open up again, but who and how many will
Speaker 1: be left behind when it does. What is more troubling
Speaker 1: is that there's going to be a large segment people
Speaker 1: who don't get rehired right, and they're gonna they tend
Speaker 1: to be older workers, right, who are costly for pay rolls,
Speaker 1: and so employers once they let go of workers are
Speaker 1: going to rehire cheaper workers, right, or they're going to
Speaker 1: impose certain technologies that reduce the noun and workers they need.
Speaker 1: So you're gonna have the economy is gonna eventually return
Speaker 1: where you're gonna have a segment of population who are
Speaker 1: cut loose and who uh probably won't be able to
Speaker 1: reconnect with the labor market later on. And so that's
Speaker 1: the population particularly worried about because we saw in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight the emergence of this long term unemployee population,
Speaker 1: many of who eventually left the labor force and are
Speaker 1: kind of contributed to our larger joblesness this problem. But
Speaker 1: that's probably going to happen in this regard to even
Speaker 1: after the economy recovers, so a lot of people may
Speaker 1: retire earlier than they anticipated. And also it's aims to
Speaker 1: me that employers are going to have to space out employees,
Speaker 1: They may not have room to have employees. There will
Speaker 1: be more people working from home. How do you see
Speaker 1: that figuring into sort of the workforce of the future
Speaker 1: of the immediate future. Well, first of all, it's important
Speaker 1: to recognize just how unequal um internet accesses in our country.
Speaker 1: A federal communication Commission. You know report from two thousand
Speaker 1: seventeen says that thirty percent of American households don't have
Speaker 1: access to even a slow broadband connection. Right, So that's
Speaker 1: a large segment of population that is uh, you know,
Speaker 1: looking on their phones to access the internet, or just
Speaker 1: just have a substandard access to it. So that presents problems.
Speaker 1: And so much of you know, job seeking is online now,
Speaker 1: and uh, I think that's going to create issues for workers,
Speaker 1: especially given that it will be hard or you know,
Speaker 1: for them perhaps too you know, hit the pavement to
Speaker 1: find jobs. It's also important just to note that for
Speaker 1: those who are able to telework, there's huge class and
Speaker 1: racial divides in that regard as well. You know. Half
Speaker 1: one estimate says that about half of those workers who
Speaker 1: have college degrees are able to telework compared to about
Speaker 1: fiftent of those without college degrees. Right, Uh, so there's
Speaker 1: big differences. There's big racial differences in terms of African
Speaker 1: Americans and Latinos uh being less able to do that. So,
Speaker 1: um so if we move to jobs increasingly that requires
Speaker 1: social distancing and require teleworking, certain segments who tend to
Speaker 1: have less education, who tend to have lower incomes are
Speaker 1: going to be left out of that new economy that's
Speaker 1: emerging out of these new needs. And I just want
Speaker 1: to underscore two that unemployment is not a negligible or
Speaker 1: trivial now or it leaves scars for people, both psyschological
Speaker 1: and economic. Right. Uh, it's comparable to other crises like
Speaker 1: the death of a loved one or divorce in terms
Speaker 1: of the real impact and permanent impact it has on
Speaker 1: people's well being. Now when everyone is employed, Uh, those
Speaker 1: kind of Uh, that kind of impact is lessened, right
Speaker 1: because you know, people understand that they're all in this together.
Speaker 1: But it still has these pretty profound consequences for individuals
Speaker 1: and their families. And we should be worried about that
Speaker 1: because it's going to be part of our reality for
Speaker 1: quite some time. This this spike and unemployment. It can
Speaker 1: have devastating effects and a ripple effect on people's mental health.
Speaker 1: But it also seems to me that it's the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that foments a revolution of sorts. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: stay at a kind of important moments in our politics,
Speaker 1: like which direction do we take some of the fear
Speaker 1: and anxiety that everyone is feeling right now? Do we
Speaker 1: channel it in a certain political direction. How are we
Speaker 1: going to respond to this. Are we going to respond
Speaker 1: collectively as a nation recognizing the fault lines that this
Speaker 1: this crisis has suddenly made visible to us within our
Speaker 1: labor market, or are we going to respond as we
Speaker 1: did in past crisis? In two thousand and eight is
Speaker 1: a good reminder of this, where yes, there was aid
Speaker 1: in beginning their support. There was some sense that we're
Speaker 1: all in this together at first, and then suddenly the
Speaker 1: narrative change. Right, It was about how, you know, people
Speaker 1: were being profligate and irresponsible and that was driving some
Speaker 1: of the joblessness we were seeing. You know that that
Speaker 1: led to the rise of the Tea Party, right, this
Speaker 1: sense to that government was bailing out still called losers
Speaker 1: or so people that had uh, you know, over extending
Speaker 1: themselves at the expense of ordinary Americans. So you could
Speaker 1: see the possibility of a divisive narrative emerging. And then
Speaker 1: that's going to stop some of the necessary steps in
Speaker 1: terms of providing that base of unemployment benefits and other
Speaker 1: sorts of support that are essential to keep those not
Speaker 1: only keep those households solvent, but also to inject some
Speaker 1: more spending in our economy. While things are installed so
Speaker 1: that uh, you know, employers don't collapse because of the
Speaker 1: lack of consumer demand. Right, So all those things are necessary,
Speaker 1: and unless we have the political will to push forward
Speaker 1: these policies and extend them as long as they're needed,
Speaker 1: we're going to pay some long term consequences for that. Hi.
Speaker 1: My name is Kathleen and I've worked at the dental
Speaker 1: Hygenisen California for almost forty years. I'm almost sixty five.
Speaker 1: I have to underlying health conditions and I don't know
Speaker 1: when it's going to be safe for me to go
Speaker 1: back to work. I can't really look too far in
Speaker 1: the future otherwise it's uh, it's really stressful thinking, you
Speaker 1: know what, what's going to happen where we are a
Speaker 1: dual income family and need to need to stay that way.
Speaker 1: I can't even look at my retirement funds. I know
Speaker 1: that it will show that I won't be able to
Speaker 1: retire when I wanted to in three years. Um, my
Speaker 1: retirement could be forced now, but I don't think my
Speaker 1: funds will last a long time. Just gig for the future.
Speaker 1: I don't have a movie when we come back how
Speaker 1: we can help each other in these desperate Times. Hi.
Speaker 1: My name as Many booker Um and I'm from Westfield,
Speaker 1: New Jersey and have been the program jector for a
Speaker 1: nonprofit grief support center for almost eight years. When COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen appeared, we quickly realized that we were going to
Speaker 1: have to pivot the way that we provide grief support
Speaker 1: to our over four hundred participants. It only took a
Speaker 1: matter of days to get our first calls from people
Speaker 1: who had a fame family member who had died from
Speaker 1: the illness, and they were looking for a whole different
Speaker 1: level of support because the typical rachels and supports that
Speaker 1: people received after a death were not available to them.
Speaker 1: There were no in person weeks to those funerals. There
Speaker 1: were no family and friends coming over to sit with them,
Speaker 1: cooked meals and cry together. It was very overwhelming for
Speaker 1: us as care providers. I honestly wasn't sure how much
Speaker 1: rightcarious trauma I would be able to tolerate. But then
Speaker 1: I was furloughed, and as much as the need was there,
Speaker 1: the money was not. Besides the obvious anxiety that I
Speaker 1: feel about potentially losing my job permanently, I feel the
Speaker 1: most sad about not being able to support the fans
Speaker 1: I have worked with for so long and as more
Speaker 1: people that due to this illness. I long to be
Speaker 1: able to support them as well. I feel like I
Speaker 1: have something to offer during this pandemic, but I'm not
Speaker 1: allowed to and that to be a loss for me
Speaker 1: as well. Before I wrapped up with Victor Tanshen, I
Speaker 1: asked what good, if any, might come from this experience.
Speaker 1: He said, the most heartening lesson is perhaps that we
Speaker 1: found strength and solidarity that we can do better with
Speaker 1: a greater sense of community. We can respond to this
Speaker 1: with a sense of compassion and grace. Right we could
Speaker 1: respond to this with the understanding that life is not
Speaker 1: a competition. That the threat to our own mortality kind
Speaker 1: of crystallizes for us what really matters in our lives
Speaker 1: and how important things that we take for granted, like
Speaker 1: going to out our data day lives are to us.
Speaker 1: So we could use this as a moment of reflection.
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of Americans are doing that
Speaker 1: right now. They're writing in their isolation journals, and they're
Speaker 1: thinking about big picture things and using this moment to
Speaker 1: reconnect with people around them. They're realizing that the kind
Speaker 1: of competition of status and wealth that we're so engaged
Speaker 1: in is somewhat paltry and petty in the in the
Speaker 1: grand scheme of things, we could use this as a
Speaker 1: source of motivation inspiration to be uh, you know, a
Speaker 1: better country. And it really depends on leadership, and it
Speaker 1: depends on people standing up and making sure that their
Speaker 1: leaders do the right thing in that regard. That was
Speaker 1: Victor tan Chen, who teaches sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University
Speaker 1: and is the author of Cut Loose, Jobless, and Hopeless
Speaker 1: in an Unfair Economy. I'd like to acknowledge all the
Speaker 1: people who have written in and called in with their stories.
Speaker 1: In this podcast, you heard the voices of Megan Ghazari,
Speaker 1: Nicole Daniels, Barbed Nelson, Nancy Rasmussen, Kathleen Lange, Mandy Sucker,
Speaker 1: and Amy Stewart. Hi. My name is Amy Stewart. I
Speaker 1: really don't know what is going to come next. One
Speaker 1: thing is for sure. I'm definitely at a cross roads. Well,
Speaker 1: it is hard, and I am a certain I know
Speaker 1: somehow we'll figure this out too. I grew up hearing
Speaker 1: stories from my grandparents about it was like for them
Speaker 1: to live through the depression. I think of them, I
Speaker 1: think of my parents, I think of my friends, and
Speaker 1: I think of my husband and I and all of
Speaker 1: the things that we've vanished to get through before this.
Speaker 1: One day, this too will be in my review mirror,
Speaker 1: and I will sit around and tell our story to
Speaker 1: our grandkids. In the past tense, there were so many
Speaker 1: more that we heard from who are struggling, uncertain about
Speaker 1: their future, or trying to stay positive despite everything, And
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say I am so sorry for
Speaker 1: what you all are going through and so appreciate your
Speaker 1: sharing your experiences with us. Please continue to write in,
Speaker 1: call in, reach out on social media. We may all
Speaker 1: be isolating right now, but we're definitely not alone. And
Speaker 1: that does it for this week's episode of Next Question.
Speaker 1: For the most up to date information on the coronavirus,
Speaker 1: please visit the CDC and World Health Organization websites. You
Speaker 1: can also subscribe to my morning newsletter wake Up Call,
Speaker 1: where we'll be profiling those affected by the pandemic. You'll
Speaker 1: also be able to see some of those profiles on
Speaker 1: my social media accounts Instagram, Facebook, and all the rest.
Speaker 1: Until next time and my Next Question, I'm Katie Couric,
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. Stay safe and try to
Speaker 1: stay positive. Next Question with Katie Couric is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Katie Currik Media. The executive
Speaker 1: producers are Katie Currik, Courtney Litz, and Tyler Klang. The
Speaker 1: supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Our show producer is Bethan Macaluso.
Speaker 1: The associate producers are Emily Pinto and Derek Clemens. Editing
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Speaker 1: Dylan Fagan. Our researcher is Gabriel Loser. For more information
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