Christine Tartaglione's Labor Report

Based on current COVID-19 infection rates, eight in 10 Americans live in a county where at least one infected person would be expected to show up at each school populated by at least 500 students and staff in the first week of classes, according to data compiled by the University of Texas and published by The New York Times.

In the nation’s highest-risk areas such as Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Nashville, and Las Vegas, at least five infected students or staff would be expected to show up at each school of 500 or more daily occupants.

Yet, the anticipated exposure rates vary greatly by location.

“The high numbers reflect the rapid spread of the virus in those areas, where more than 1 in 70 people are estimated to be currently infected,” the Times reported. “At the same time, smaller, isolated groups of students face a much lower risk. Some schools are considering narrowing classes down to small ‘pods,’ with students who mainly come in contact with their teacher and each other. While the chance of having an infected person at the school would stay the same, the risk of exposure within those pods would be much lower.”

In many districts where schools have already opened for the fall term, the spread of the virus has already been documented.

Business Insider reported that in Corinth, Mississippi, one high school student tested positive in the first week of classes. Within days, four more high school students, one middle school student, and one elementary school employee all tested positive. Within the first 11 days of classes, at least 115 students were sent home for two-week quarantines because they had close contact with the virus carriers.

Similar examples have happened elsewhere.

“In Georgia’s Cherokee School District, three students have tested positive and a kindergarten class was sent home after a teacher displayed symptoms,” Business Insider reported. “A handful of employees at Louisiana’s Jefferson Parish School District tested positive two days into their school year, and at least six students in Kentucky tested positive after their first weeks back, too. Four school districts in Central Indiana, meanwhile, have identified at least seven cases since schools began reopening last week.”

In Pennsylvania, the Department of Education has issued guidance allowing individual school entities to determine their reopening policies. The Department has stated that in “green phase” areas (all counties are currently in the green phase), schools may provide in-person instruction after developing a written Health and Safety Plan, securing approval by each school entity’s governing body (i.e., board of directors), and posting the plan on the school’s or district’s public website.

Each plan must include the identification of a “pandemic coordinator” and/or “pandemic team” with defined roles and responsibilities for health and safety preparedness and response planning; steps to protect children and staff at higher risk of severe illness; steps to take in relation to isolation or quarantine when a staff member, child, or visitor becomes sick or demonstrates a history of exposure; and expectations for the posting of signs in highly visible locations, that promote everyday protective measures and how to stop the spread of germs.

Plans must also include procedures for cleaning, sanitizing, disinfecting, and ventilating learning spaces; procedures for the safe use of cafeterias and other congregate settings; protocols for sporting activities consistent with CDC Considerations for Youth Sports for recess and physical education classes; and schedules for training all faculty and staff on the implementation of the Health and Safety Plan.

The above guidance does not cover interscholastic sports. This week, Governor Tom Wolf recommended that all high school sports be suspended until 2021.
In Philadelphia, public schools will open without classroom instruction. Superintendent William Hite has said he expects virtual instruction to continue at least until November. Pittsburgh public schools will also conduct classes exclusively online for at least the first nine weeks of the academic year. Many other districts including those in Allentown and Lancaster will conduct virtual classes only.

Other districts, such as those in Scranton, Erie, State College, Butler, and Central Pa., will have some in-person instruction.

Cornell Survey Shows Many Workers Losing Their Jobs a Second Time Due to Coronavirus

A new survey published by Cornell University has found that a second wave of COVID-related layoffs is now affecting a large portion of American workers who lost their jobs in the early stages of the pandemic.

Nearly one in three workers who returned to work after having lost their jobs due to the virus have now been laid off for a second time, researchers found. And more than one in four of those still on payrolls have been warned by their employers that they may be laid off again. All told, about three in five workers who went back to jobs have either been let go again or told they may be laid off.

“(That is) a remarkably high number of people who were reemployed by businesses that may not be able to afford to keep them on,” lead researcher Daniel Alpert of Cornell Law School said, as reported by Business Insider.

The survey was conducted online from July 23 to Aug. 1 with 6,383 randomly engaged Americans, among whom 653 chose to respond to the questions. Thirty-seven percent reported that they had been laid off or furloughed since March 1, 2020. Among those who were laid off, 35% said they were back on the payroll and working, while 22% said they were back on the payroll but not working. The remaining 43% said they were not back on the payroll.

Real-Time Interactive World-Wide Intelligence (RIWI) conducted the survey, which was developed by Cornell and the U.S. Private Sector Job Quality Index.

“The study was developed to test whether U.S. employees were vulnerable to business failures following the influx of U.S. government support to small and medium sized businesses that received an aggregate of $521 million in forgivable loans under the U.S. Treasury Department’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) promulgated under the CARES Act of 2020, the funding under which has been largely fully-expended by employers,” the report stated.

Twenty-eight percent of all respondents considered themselves self-employed, among whom 32% had claimed unemployment benefits under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program.

Business Insider reported that second-wave layoffs were actually higher in states that were not experiencing new spikes in COVID-19 cases.

“What that is telling us is that this is not an issue of the virus expanding around the country. It’s not an issue of hotspots expanding,” Alpert said. “It’s an issue that is systematic and related to the CARES Act and PPP issues itself – the fact that it was limited to eight weeks of wages.”

Nation’s Initial Unemployment Claims Decreased Last Week, But Continue at Near-Record Pace

In advance of its monthly jobs report for July, the U.S. Department of Labor stated in its latest weekly unemployment report that there were 1,186,000 initial unemployment claims filed nationwide between July 26 and August 1, a figure that represents a decrease of 249,000 from the previous week.

It was the nation’s first weekly decline in new unemployment claims since July 11. Yet, it also was the 20th straight week of at least 1 million new claims. Prior to the pandemic, the number of initial claims had never exceeded 700,000 in a single week, not even during the Great Recession of 2007-2009, according to the Associated Press.

An additional 656,000 people nationwide filed initial Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) claims for the week. PUA is the program enacted by the federal government in March to provide benefits for self-employed and independent contractors who have lost work due to the pandemic.

In total, 31.3 million Americans are now receiving either unemployment compensation (UC) or PUA, the Labor Department said. Until July 25, all UC and PUA recipients were eligible to collect an additional $600 per week in Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC), but that benefit has expired. An extension of FPUC is included in the HEROES Act that was adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives in May, but the U.S. Senate has not voted on the Act.

Instead, the U.S. Senate’s Republican leadership has proposed a different relief package that would reduce FPUC benefits to $200 per week. Unemployed folks will receive no FPUC benefits pending the adoption of new legislation.

Resurgences of the virus in states and localities continue to threaten the job market and the nation’s economy, according to the AP.

One economist informed the news agency, “Repeated shutdowns for virus containment remain a threat to the labor market, which is already weak. The possibility of mounting layoffs that could become permanent is high. Without effective virus containment, the recovery remains at risk from ongoing job losses that could further restrain incomes and spending.”

From April through June, the nation’s gross domestic product plummeted at an annual rate of 33%, “by far the worst quarterly fall on record,” the AP said. Only about 40% of the jobs lost due to the coronavirus have been recovered.

July 2020 National Jobs Update

The seasonally adjusted national unemployment rate fell for a third consecutive month in July 2020, dropping to 10.2%, down 0.9% over the month and down 4.5% from 14.7% in April, its highest level in the history of the seasonally adjusted series (dating back to 1948 - prior to this time, unemployment was estimated to have hit roughly 25% during the Great Depression of the 1930s). This and the other changes to data noted in this update reflect the evolution of the national employment situation through the coronavirus pandemic (please see the **footnote below). Over the month, unemployment rolls fell by 1.412 million individuals, lowering total unemployment to 16.338 million. However, as has been the case in recent months, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has indicated that unemployment figures would likely have been higher if survey respondents had been properly classified as unemployed on temporary layoff.

As of July 2020, the national unemployment rate stood 6.7% higher than its level of 3.5% in February 2020 (which matched the 50 year low seen in 2019) with total unemployment standing 10.551 million higher than the February 2020 level of 5.787 million individuals. For context, the unemployment rate had declined 1.2% with total unemployment down by 1.731 million individuals over President Trump’s term as of February 2020. National unemployment statistics for the month are as follows:

As indicated above, total unemployment’s rounded percentage of the labor force, or unemployment rate, fell over the month (rate = unemployment / labor force). The labor force is the total number of employed individuals combined with the total number of unemployed individuals actively searching for work. Growth in the labor force can be a sign of a strengthening economy from more people working and/or more individuals searching for jobs. Following two months of recovery, the national labor force fell slightly by 62,000 individuals in July 2020, a combination of total employment* rising by 1,350,000 individuals and total unemployment down by 1,412,000 individuals as noted above, lowering its total to 159,870,000.

As of July 2020, the national labor force stood 3,389,000 individuals (unemployment -6,740,000 & employment +10,129,000) higher than its low of 156,481,000 in April 2020 during the coronavirus emergency, but was 4,676,000 individuals (unemployment +10,551,000 & employment -15,227,000) lower than its level of 164,546,000 in February 2020 (near the record high of 164,606,000 in Jan. 2020). For context, the national labor force had grown by 4,899,000 million individuals (unemployment -1,731,000 & employment +6,630,000) over President Trump’s term as of February 2020. National labor force statistics for the month are as follows:

Non-farm* job rolls rebounded for a third consecutive month with growth of 1.763 million in July 2020, raising total non-farm employment to 139,582,000. This is 9,279,000 jobs higher than the non-farm employment level low of 130,303,000 in April 2020 during the coronavirus emergency.

As of July 2020, total non-farm employment stood 12,881,000 million, or roughly 8%, lower than the record high level of 152,463,000 in February 2020. For context, non-farm employment had grown by 6,836,000 over President Trump’s term as of February 2020. National non-farm employment statistics for the month are as follows:

*Total employment for labor force provided by U.S. Census Household survey. The separate BLS Establishment survey measures non-farm jobs only.
**Survey periods for data are as of the middle of the month, meaning changes occurring beyond this time are not captured for the month.

As Schools Plan for New Academic Year, Data Analysts Predict High Risks of COVID Exposure

Cornell Survey Shows Many Workers Losing Their Jobs a Second Time Due to Coronavirus

Nation’s Initial Unemployment Claims Decreased Last Week, But Continue at Near-Record Pace

July 2020 National Jobs Update

June 2020 PA County Unemployment Rates