Donald Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus response has resulted in him wiping all of the job gains in Obama’s recovery from the Great Recession.
More than 5 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, bringing the total in the month since the coronavirus pandemic throttled the U.S. economy to 22 million and effectively erasing a decade worth of job creation.
Initial jobless claims of 5.25 million in the week ended April 11 followed 6.62 million the prior week, according to Labor Department figures Thursday. The median estimate of economists was for 5.5 million, with projections ranging as high as 8 million. The four-week sum compares with roughly 21.5 million jobs added during the expansion that began in mid-2009.
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None of this had to happen. If Trump would have acted on the months of warnings before the virus arrived in the US. If the President would have had a widespread testing system in place, health experts would have been able to track the virus, and given local, state, and federal governments the data that they needed to effectively shut down and stop the spread of the virus for a targeted three weeks.
The country continues to fly blind with no real timetable for resuming normal life because testing is completely inadequate. Trump promised to make America great again, but what he has done is take America back to a state of collapse that hasn’t existed since the Great Depression.
Trump has wiped out everything Obama and the American people worked for, as illness, death, failure, and collapse are destined to be his legacy.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
