Today, Protect Our Care’s Coronavirus War Room Director Zac Petkanas issued the following statement following the news that the weekly initial jobless claims were 712,000 and the monthly jobs gains were far less than expected.
“For more than 200 days, Senate Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue allowed real economic relief passed by the House of Representatives to languish while the financial situation for families deteriorated. The reason? Senate Republicans were demanding direct stimulus checks to families be replaced with special legal immunity for corporations that put their employees’ health at risk.
“Their financial hostage-taking is one of the main reasons the economy is teetering on utter collapse. For 37 weeks in a row, the weekly jobless claims have relentlessly surpassed 700,000, rivaling the worst days of the Great Recession. And job growth once again fell far short of expectations, dashing the hopes of millions of Americans from getting back to work.
“That’s why the so-called bipartisan compromise economic package being discussed must only be considered a small down payment on preventing broader catastrophe. The truth is that McConnell’s months-long obstruction has exacerbated the financial problem so deeply that nibbling around the edges is no longer an option.”