Torn between the continuing horror of the coronavirus pandemic and the hope of vaccines that could eventually eradicate COVID-19, states and local governments face an uncertain future in 2021.
Potentially crippling layoffs loom in state, municipal and county governments that together shed 1.5 million public jobs during the first nine months of the pandemic.
These public layoffs come atop mounting job losses in the private sector. More than 10.7 million Americans were jobless at the end of November, a fifth of them in the restaurant industry.
Thirty-four states have unemployment levels exceeding the jobless levels of the Great Recession of 2007-2009.
Every state and most communities have suffered from the coronavirus, which in December has accounted for more than 3,000 daily deaths and sent the nation’s accumulated death toll soaring above 300,000, about the population of Pittsburgh.
The economic impact of the pandemic has been heavy but unevenly distributed. States dependent on tourism, travel and entertainment have lost the most jobs.
The tourist meccas of Hawai’i (14.3 percent unemployed) and Nevada (12 percent), have the nation’s highest jobless rates, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nebraska (3.0 percent) and Vermont (3.2 percent) have the lowest rates.
The first vaccines were distributed nationwide as the United States entered a deadly winter that Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has called “the most difficult time in the public health history of the nation.”
New Lockdowns
With the coronavirus surging, several states imposed stringent new lockdowns that will further reduce state and municipal tax revenue. Some restaurants have defied these orders, even at the risk of fines, with their owners saying they can’t survive if they don’t stay open.
States recognize that small businesses are in dire straits.
The Colorado Legislature, called into special session by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, passed several relief measures, including a $57 million grant for small businesses.
In Ohio, Republican Gov. Michael DeWine, partnering with the Legislature, offered $419.5 million in new grants to small businesses, restaurants and bars, hospitals, higher education, arts, and nonprofit organizations affected financially by the pandemic. More than 21,000 applied.
In November, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, signed a $330 million relief package that includes $100 million to support businesses with 100 or fewer workers.
In Washington, Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee previously announced a $50 million program for Evergreen State small businesses. Massachusetts and Rhode Island have similar programs in place. Last week, Republicans in the Connecticut House of Representatives proposed legislation to create a $50 million grant program for the state’s restaurant industry.
This money comes from the $150 billion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed by Congress in March.
Many states have used up their share of the CARES money, which can be spent only on projects directly linked to the pandemic, and have sought additional federal aid from Congress.
Additional federal aid for states and cities that President-elect Joe Biden called a down payment on future needs was dropped from a pending stimulus bill because of Republican opposition.
Amid the anxiety in most state capitols, California received good news that offered a revealing glimpse of the economic winners and losers in the pandemic.
Earlier this year, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom estimated that the 2021 state budget would come up $54 billion short. Instead, there’s now a surplus of either $15.5 billon (Newsom’s figure) or $26 billion, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Newsom proposes to spend $500 million of this money to help small businesses; state Sen.Andreas Borgeas, R-Fresno, has introduced a bill to spend 10 percent of the surplus, whatever its size, on small business grants.
The Golden State has a budget surplus because much of its revenue comes from the hefty income tax paid by the top 1 percent of taxpayers.
Winners and Losers
Wealthy Americans and many U.S. investors have prospered during the pandemic. Although the global economy slumped to its lowest level in 70 years, U.S. equity markets have recovered their losses after plunging in February and show a net gain for 2020.
It’s a different story for many millions of Americans idled by the pandemic and facing a steep and immediate drop in spending power if Congress allows federal jobless benefits to expire at the end of December.
Fifty million people — nearly one in six Americans — have experienced hunger, according to Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger-relief organization.
Forty million people face eviction next year, according to Aspen Research.
Half of the 22 million jobs lost in the pandemic have been regained, but the United States will not recoup all of them until 2024, predicts Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.
Adding to the stress of these sober assessments and the rising COVID-19 death toll, has been the evidence-free resistance of President Donald Trump to the results of the election. More than 50 state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have upheld the election of Biden, which was certified Dec. 14 by the Electoral College.
But Trump’s challenge sowed public distrust and has set the scene for contentious state legislative battles on election issues.
“We can expect an exceptionally busy elections agenda for the states in 2021,” said Wendy Underhill, director of elections and redistricting for the National Conference of State Legislators. “It’s an agenda that will move in two directions.”
One direction doubles down on Trump’s repeated assault on mail voting, which because of the pandemic was more widely used than ever before in 2020.
Republican legislators in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Texas are preparing to introduce bills that would limit mail voting and impose other voting restrictions. One proposed Texas law would make offering help in filling out a ballot a felony.
The rationale for these measures is that they would prevent voter fraud, which several studies have shown to be exceedingly rare. Departing Attorney General William Barr, a Trump supporter, found that fraud did not affect the outcome in the 2020 presidential election.
Democrats are ecstatic that 65 million Americans voted by mail, more than the number that turned out on Election Day. Democratic legislators in at least seven states plan to introduce measures that would expand mail voting or at a minimum follow this year’s pandemic-induced process of mailing ballots to all registered voters.
“We saw how successful the election was in all the states,” California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, a Democrat, told Stateline. “I’m hoping that is proof to the wisdom of these changes.”
Republican Party efforts to make voting more difficult and Democratic Party attempts to make it easier reflect traditional views that a large turnout favors Democrats.
But this year, when there was record turnout, was a Republican year except for the presidential race. The GOP defined most predictions by winning several House seats and holding the Senate, pending two runoff elections in Georgia on Jan. 5.
Republicans also won a previously Democratic governorship in Montana and captured both houses of the New Hampshire Legislature. Democrats had high expectations in many states but failed to win a single Republican-controlled chamber.
Reflections on 2020
As 2020 recedes into the rear-view mirror, it’s a time of sorrow for the scores of thousands of Americans who have lost loved ones in the pandemic.
It’s also a time of thanksgiving for the doctors, nurses and other health-care workers who have worked on the coronavirus front lines at risk of their own lives.
All who value our democracy should also give thanks to the more than 900,000 poll workers and officials in 10,072 election jurisdictions who counted the ballots and maintained the voting machines.
These foot soldiers of democracy did their work anonymously in most cases, not without risk, and they did it well. We are in their debt.
— Lou Cannon, a Summerland resident, is a longtime national political writer and acclaimed presidential biographer. His most recent book — co-authored with his son, Carl — is Reagan’s Disciple: George W. Bush’s Troubled Quest for a Presidential Legacy. Cannon also is an editorial adviser to State Net Capitol Journal, which published this column originally. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
