There are still about 28 million people collecting unemployment insurance, which is down slightly from 32 million at the peak of the pandemic in July.
Initial claims unexpectedly rose last week (to almost 900,000) after several weeks of declines.
This means that the economy is still shedding jobs faster than it is creating them.
Here’s my question: How quickly can the economy create 28 million jobs?
Looking at examples from history gives us an idea. Conditions aren’t exactly the same, but this is the best we have.
During the 8 years of President Obama’s term, the economy created about 16 million jobs: it replaced about 8 million jobs that were lost during the Great Recession and added 8 million new ones. The Federal debt increased by $8 trillion during that time.
The President credited with “creating” the most jobs is Bill Clinton: 18.6 million in 8 years. In those years, there was a small budget surplus that reduced the Federal debt by $63 billion.
The Federal deficit for the 2020 fiscal year, which began in October, is almost $3 trillion already. Neither Congress nor the public nor any mainstream economist believes the Federal debt matters anymore, but as someone who believes that in God’s covenantal universe negative sanctions eventually follow bad behavior, I have to disagree with them.
Some amount of jobs will return quickly. Apparently, already 4 million have returned since July. These jobs are the low-hanging fruit. I’m sure there will be more that return rapidly also. And then the job creation rate will begin slowing.
And the worst isn’t over.
The airline companies are preparing to cut tens of thousands from their payrolls starting in October unless Congress gives them another bailout. They are waiting until October because those were the terms of the bailout money they received.
Air travel is still down over 70 percent. The recovery in airline travel has stalled out.
So the pain isn’t over.
HOW WILL YOUR CHURCH RESPOND?
Do you think these unemployed people will start coming to your church asking for assistance when the unemployment benefits run out?
What about members of your congregation who have been relying on the government benefits?
It’s now been 6 months since millions of people started collecting unemployment benefits in March.
Will there be a tsunami of aid requests that hit our churches when the expanded benefits expire? I don’t know.
But what if there is? How would your church respond? What would you do?
If you knew you had time to prepare, what would you do?
What can I do to help you?
One thing I can’t do is create new money to give your church to satisfy all demands. Or my church either, for that matter. I am not the Federal Reserve.
One thing I can do is maybe give you a timeline.
To get an idea of how much time you might have, take a look at this policy site that presents three timelines for when people will start losing their unemployment benefits.
It covers 1) people who lost their job in September of 2019 and were already on unemployment when the pandemic hit, 2) workers who lost their jobs in March, and 3) workers who lost their jobs in April. Click the link to read the article:
Many Unemployed Workers Will Exhaust Jobless Benefits This Year
I made a post in the forums about this issue too, with a link to the article. If you have any advice on how to prepare, please share it there:
Forums: When will COVID-19 unemployment benefits expire?
If you want to post but haven’t yet requested an account, you can do so here:
As a deacon, one thing you can do to help your church is to propose a church-wide financial education program for church families.
But you don’t have to wait for your church leadership to approve such a program. You can start offering to assist individual members now. Offer to provide financial training on the weekends.
I can help with this, too.
As an alternative to training them yourself, you can direct them to the 12-part video course I developed. If they implement that program, they’ll be in a much stronger financial position when economic conditions deteriorate further.
You can access the courses through my website here:
What is something you can do to help?
Well, if you have other advice or ideas, let me know or post in the forums! You can help get the conversation started there. The more deacons we can get to discuss the issue, the better we can devise ways to help those in need.