On July 2, a newly released statistics showed that the economy of the United States regained around 4.8 million jobs in June and that the total unemployment rate dropped from 13.3% to 11.1% as the U.S continues to recover from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Economy is recovering
The Bureau of Labor Statistics said in a statement that the improvements with the unemployment rate are a reflection of the continued resumption of economic activity that had been halted in March and April because of the coronavirus pandemic.
In June, the employment rate in the hospitality and leisure industries increased. Jobs also opened in education, retail trade, manufacturing, health services, and business services.
According to the report, unemployment in the black community dropped from 16.8% to 15.4% and the unemployment rate in the Latino community dropped from 17.6% to 14.5%.
A labor economist at the University of Tennessee, Marianne Wanamaker, told The Wall Street Journal that the country is now slowly recovering. But if the U.S does not control the increasing number of coronavirus cases, the recovery will stall out.
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An economics professor at Michigan State University told The Wall Street Journal that even though things are looking up for America's economy, the public should still be cautious because the U.S is still in the no.1 in the world when it comes to coronavirus cases. There is still an emergency and small businesses are still closing.
Statistics
The Labor Department report showed key statistics. The unemployment rate decreased in June and the number of unemployed Americans fell from 17.8 million to 3.2 million. The number of unemployed Americans who were on temporary layoff decreased from 10.6 million to 4.8 million in June.
The number of people who permanently lost their job continued to increase, going from 588,000 to 2.9 million in June. The number of unemployed people who now have jobs increases from 711,000 to 2.4 million. The number of unemployed Americans who did not have jobs for 5 weeks or less decreased from 2.8 million to 1 million in June.
Unemployed Americans who did not have jobs for 5 weeks to 14 weeks decreased from 11.5 million to 3.3 million, they accounted for 65.2% of the unemployment rate. The number of Americans who were unemployed for 15 to 26 weeks and those who were jobless for 27 weeks or more increased from 825,000 to 1.9 million.
Steve Ratter from MSNBC who used to work in the Obama administration, responded to the report released by the Labor Department and stated that there is no other way to look at the statistics but as good news. Economists have had a very difficult time in forecasting the numbers, including the numbers of jobless people last month.
Getting the total unemployment rate down to 11% is better than what the country expected. To help the economy, President Donald Trump talked about "Explore America" tax credit that will give each eligible American family $4,000 so they can use it for travel expenses. It is a way to encourage Americans to travel domestically, check-in at hotels, and dine-in at restaurants.
However, there is still no news as to when it will take effect as the Senate is still debating on what the second stimulus check would include.
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