The $600 weekly unemployment benefits checks under the CARES act have expired yesterday. Not surprisingly, the liberal media is predicting things will get worse if they are not renewed, and that this is a big crisis:
Cutting off the $600 boost to unemployment benefits would be both cruel and bad economics
Millions of Americans risk homelessness if the $600 unemployment benefit ends
More Americans file for unemployment as extra $600 benefit ends and COVID-19 surges
Contrary to the media doom and gloom, the economic impact of not renewing the $600 checks will be minimal. The stock market will keep going up, corporate earnings will keep growing, and GDP will not fall much. The reason is, only 10-20 million Americans were collecting such benefits, which is tiny relative to the overall size of the US population and relative to total domestic income and consumption. The top 20% wealthiest Americans and foreigners contribute 80% to consumer spending, but the pandemic joblessness primary hurt the poorest of income earners.
From NPR, which is not exactly a right-wing source, The Rich Have Stopped Spending And That Has Tanked The Economy:
That’s potentially crippling because consumer spending is a huge driver of economic activity. In fact, so much of the country’s economy depends on shopping by the top income bracket that the wealthiest 25% of Americans account for fully two-thirds of the total decline in spending since January.class.
But wait, I thought the narrative by the left is that the US economy is dependent on stimulus for low-income people, who will immediately spend the money on essentials instead of hoarding the money, unlike the rich. So which is it?
Apple just reported another huge quarter of earnings despite the pandemic. The stock is worth a mind-blowing $1.8 trillion. Apple revenue grew 11% yer over year despite the pandemic. Same for Amazon, Google, Tesla, Microsoft, and Facebook (all stocks which this blog has been recommending for years), which also reported record profits. The media keeps insisting that Covid is supposed to be bad for consumer spending, bad for economy, yet the data shows otherwise. The reason why Apple is doing so well in spite of the pandemic is because the people who buy their phones, which are pricey (especially after factoring in peripherals, data plans, and app store purchases), tend to have a lot of disposable income. It is not the bottom 10-20 million, who are collecting those $600 checks, who are the main consumers of Apple products, but rather the global rich and upper-middle-class.
Now the liberal media is saying that letting those $600 checks expire will hurt the economy. It just like in Dec. 2012 when the liberal media said that the fiscal cliff would severely hurt the economy (remember that?,) blaming ‘Republican obstruction.’ Many liberal economists were predicting recession due to spending cuts. But 2013 would see the S&P 500 gain 30% and the US economy continue to boom, so much for that ‘cliff’. Whether it’s Apple or Covid, this goes to show how the liberal media is always wrong and how listening to the liberal media in terms of making financial decisions will cost you money.