Unprecedented economic carnage
Friday, May 15, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Bloomberg…
U.S. factory production plummeted in April by the most in records back to 1919 as coronavirus-related shutdowns exacted a bigger toll on the economy.
Output slumped 13.7% from the prior month after a revised 5.5% decrease in March, Federal Reserve data showed Friday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 14.6% decline. Overall industrial production — which also includes output at mines and utilities — dropped 11.2% in April. […]
The Fed’s report also showed capacity utilization, which measures the amount of a plant in use, slid to 64.9%, the lowest in records back to 1967. At manufacturers alone, utilization dropped to 61.1%, an all-time low in data to 1948.
Motor vehicle production slumped to a 70,000-unit annualized rate, compared with 11 million two months earlier, the Fed said.
Check out the chart. Whew…
* WaPo…
Retail sales plunged 16.4 percent in April, a record drop and another reflection of how severely the coronavirus pandemic continues to stifle the U.S. economy.
Data released Friday from the Census Bureau blew past analyst expectations, smashing March’s revised decline of 8.3 percent. Shoppers may continue to hunt for cleaning supplies and other basic pantry items, but consumer spending, which typically drives 70 percent of the nation’s economy, remains largely hollowed out. U.S. stock futures fell off the retail news Friday morning.
The April figure reflects the weeks in which most states were still shut down. Last month, 20.5 million people abruptly lost their jobs and the national unemployment rate jumped to 14.7 percent, the highest level since the Great Depression.
* Meanwhile…
Across the country, worries about having enough to eat are adding to the anxiety of millions of people, according to a survey that found 37% of unemployed Americans ran out of food in the past month and 46% said they worried about running out.
Even those who are working often struggle. Two in 10 working adults said that in the past 30 days, they ran out of food before they could earn enough money to buy more. One-quarter worried that would happen.
Those results come from the second wave of the COVID Impact Survey, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for the Data Foundation. The survey aims to provide an ongoing assessment of the nation’s mental, physical and financial health during the pandemic. […]
Overall, those who are still working are highly confident they will have a job in one month and in three months, with more than 8 in 10 saying it’s very likely. But among those who aren’t working because they are temporarily laid off, providing care during the pandemic or looking for work, just 28% say it is highly likely that they will be employed in 30 days and 46% say it’s highly likely they’ll be working in three months. Roughly another quarter say it’s somewhat likely in 30 days and 90 days.
* And…
A Washington Post-Ipsos poll of more than 8,000 adults in late April and early May found that nearly 6 in 10 Americans who are working outside their homes were concerned that they could be exposed to the virus at work and infect other members of their household. Those concerns were even higher for some: Roughly 7 in 10 black and Hispanic workers said they were worried about getting a household member sick if they are exposed at work.
- Precinct Captain - Friday, May 15, 20 @ 1:15 pm:
And meanwhile Nero Trump is fiddling
- Candy Dogood - Friday, May 15, 20 @ 1:27 pm:
Watching Elon Musk lose his mind over his plant being closed in order to save the lives of his employees has at least been entertaining.
His CA plant averages around two employee injuries a day when there isn’t a pandemic, in part because Elon has removed safety measures simply because he didn’t like them — including the noise fork lifts make when they back up.
- Decaturland - Friday, May 15, 20 @ 1:34 pm:
What do you expect when “listen to the science crowd and keep it shut down.” are running the show. Central Illinois has a six percent positivity rate and we’re still subject to the same rules that Cook County (20%) has. Seventy three percent of deaths in Illinois are in Cook but Gov. Pritzker still keeps to his plan. Danville residents can drive a few miles to Covington and have a meal but not in their own town. Never mind “Nero Trump is fiddling.”
- striketoo - Friday, May 15, 20 @ 1:36 pm:
Every level of government is going to have to review what it is doing and why. In Illinois we are going to have to prune back to basically three levels, state, county, and municipal. Townships and most special taxing units will have their operation absorbed by counties. Small counties themselves ) will have to merge into units with at least 25,000 population. No program at any level can be expected to survive without intense scrutiny.
- Ray Gun - Friday, May 15, 20 @ 1:41 pm:
that is bad
- Ugh - Friday, May 15, 20 @ 1:45 pm:
These are just the hits to the greedy private sector people right? In Illinois, the public sector chugs on without a financial care in the world. Anyone in the Secretary of State’s office been furloughed? No driving tests, no licenses, no plates? Why are they still at full employment levels?
- @misterjayem - Friday, May 15, 20 @ 1:49 pm:
“What do you expect when ‘listen to the science crowd and keep it shut down.’ are running the show. *** Seventy three percent of deaths in Illinois are in Cook but Gov. Pritzker still keeps to his plan.”
This post is about a nationwide economic decline.
Did you really not understand that?
– MrJM
- Huh? - Friday, May 15, 20 @ 1:58 pm:
“Elon has removed safety measures simply because he didn’t like them”
Like the yellow strips on the floor to mark the safety zone around robotic machines.
- Huh? - Friday, May 15, 20 @ 2:02 pm:
Striketoo - it ain’t gonna happen. Goring someone’s political fiefdom will be the death of your idea.
Secondly, consolidation of political entities won’t save that much money. The work will still have to be done, the workers will be absorbed into the larger political entity.
- Huh? - Friday, May 15, 20 @ 2:04 pm:
This a clear indication that any economic recovery will be a long time coming.
- Da Big Bad Wolf - Friday, May 15, 20 @ 2:20 pm:
=== Elon has removed safety measures simply because he didn’t like them.===
He doesn’t like yellow. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/04/tesla-workers-getting-hurt-because-elon-musk-hates-yellow.html
- Earl the Pearl - Friday, May 15, 20 @ 2:33 pm:
Has anyone compared these statistics with the same from 1980-1982, which is often called the forgotten Recession, and worse than the recession of 2008?
- Lynn S. - Friday, May 15, 20 @ 2:54 pm:
@ Earl the Pearl:
Look at the first chart Rich posted in this article. That chart goes back almost 100 years, and yes, things right now are significantly worse than the 2 periods you asked about.
I’m old enough to remember 1980-82. Unemployment has fallen faster than either of those periods, and may hit almost 30% before this is over.