The Trump Administration and Senate Republicans finally reached the outlines of a deal yesterday to extend some parts of the Covid relief package a while longer.
With the business body count rising, Neal Bradley, chief policy officer over at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, commented that “this is no time for Washington political games” and urged swift action.
On Yelp, 17% of all businesses that closed since March are restaurants, and 60% of those are permanent closures. The National Restaurant Association says restaurants have furloughed or laid off more than 8 million workers, about two-thirds of the nation’s restaurant workforce. WineAmerica estimates the losses for just 10% of the nation’s wineries at $400 million for March. Multiply that by 10 and you get $4 million. In May, WineAmerica’s survey found an 88% decline in visitor numbers, with a 70% decline in tasting room sales. Thirteen percent halted all production and more than half of those surveyed slowed it down.
Wine-Searcher.com has an excellent, and extremely detailed, wrapup of the impact of the virus on the wine business. If you haven’t read it, you should.
Just-released Census Bureau household data collected July 9-14 paints a grim picture :
- 50.1% of American adults live in households which have experienced a loss in employment income
- 35.1% of American adults expect to experience a loss in employment income
- 10.8% of Americans lived in households where there was either sometimes or often not enough to eat in the previous 7 days
- 40.6% of adults had delayed getting medical care in the previous 4 weeks
- 25.3% of respondents reported having little interest or pleasure in doing things more than half the days/nearly every day last week
- 23.3% of respondents reported feeling down more than half the days/nearly every day last week
- 33.8% of respondents reported feeling anxious or nervous more than half the days/nearly every day last week
- On average, households spent $212.79 a week to buy food at supermarkets, grocery stores, online, and other places to be prepared and eaten at home
- 26.4% of adults either missed last month’s rent or mortgage payment, or had slight or no confidence that their household could make the next payment on time
We’re going to go out on a limb and make a prediction: Donald Trump has lost the election, and the Republicans any hope of winning back the House. As for the Senate, we think that’s gone, too. To be sure, on our trip to Bloomington, Ind., over the weekend we saw a handful of Trump signs in Western Pennsylvania and the Maryland Panhandle. But four years ago, driving through the same region, there were Trump signs on every single piece of property we saw.
Toward the end of this election campaign, we suspect the Democrats will have a very simple message, quoting Ronald Reagan: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” They’ll answer with one of the most time-tested political slogans of all time: “It’s time for a change.”