最新的新闻工作报告劳工部星期五发布的报告描绘了一幅暗淡的画面，这是自新型冠状病毒在美国蔓延以来的第一份报告。
失业率从近50年来的最低点3.5%上升到4.4%，经济损失了701，000个工作岗位，这是自1975年1月以来最大的月增长。失业人数增加了140万，达到710万。
美国失业人口的真实数字无疑要高得多，因为三月份的就业报告只包括前两周。3月的最后两周，至少有1000万人申请失业救济，其结果要到下个月的报告才能真正知晓。
“在大萧条最严重的时候，失业率达到了25%。加州大学伯克利分校专门研究劳动和政治的经济学教授迈克尔·赖克(Michael Reich)告诉记者:“我们正面临一场比20世纪30年代更严重的大萧条。”新闻周刊。“我预计，现在已经超过1000万的失业率在未来几个月可能会增加到4000万。”
冠状病毒大流行以极快的速度将美国政治和经济带入未知领域。社会距离准则迫使经济下滑，试图阻止这种蔓延，经济学家警告说，这个国家可能会走向一个比大萧条更黑暗的地方。
随着初选被取消，大选的努力转向通过邮件投票，冠状病毒大流行中黯淡的就业形势引发了一个问题:这场公共卫生危机可能会影响11月的投票吗？
4月1日，在DC首都华盛顿，唐纳德·特朗普总统在新闻发布室与白宫冠状病毒特别工作组成员交谈。
如果历史对政治和失业率之间的相关性有什么看法的话，那就是失业率越高，现任总统赢得连任的可能性就越小。杰拉尔德·福特总统、吉米·卡特总统和乔治·h·w·布什总统落选，失业率超过7%。
但是富兰克林·德拉诺·罗斯福总统和巴拉克·奥巴马总统——他们分别领导了大萧条和大衰退——以及罗纳德·里根总统，尽管失业率超过了7%，还是设法赢得了第二任期。
可以肯定的是，没有人确切知道唐纳德·特朗普总统是否会再次当选，或者选民是否会选择一个新的人，考虑到无限多的变量:什么时候会放松社会距离？什么时候餐馆和非必要的商业可以重新开张？限制持续的时间越长，复苏就越艰难。
布鲁金斯学会(Brookings Institution)的经济学家加里·伯莱特斯(Gary burutthy)告诉记者:“干扰持续的时间越长，越多的人回来后会变得极其谨慎，并面临风险。”新闻周刊。"许多雇主将会破产，无法重新开始工作。"
共和党和民主党战略家认为，或许同样重要的一个因素是特朗普如何在未来几个月里安然度过这场风暴。他的支持率略有上升，与他上任时的46%持平。但大多数美国人表示，他们不相信从特朗普那里得到的信息，他被嘲笑为从一开始就淡化病毒的严重性，同时发表不准确或虚假的声明。
“这次选举将完全围绕冠状病毒大流行展开。这将是这次选举的决定性问题:总统如何回应以及经济影响，”民主党战略家克里斯·科德告诉记者新闻周刊。“归根结底，这将是一场关于总统处理这样一场历史性危机能力的公投。到目前为止，我会说[他不太出色。”
2020年3月30日，在华盛顿特区，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)在白宫介绍了雅培实验室(Abbott Labs)开发的新的护理点COVID-19检测试剂盒后，在玫瑰园发表讲话。在两天内全国范围内冠状病毒(COVID-19)死亡人数翻了一番，超过2000人后，美国已经更新了针对美国公民的指南，以保持目前的社会距离做法，直至4月底。
“这不仅仅是特朗普如何遏制蔓延和重建经济的问题，”Kofinis认为。这也关系到民主党如何处理这种情况。如果党派政治被注入到公共健康危机之中，该党将会搬起石头砸自己的脚，落入一个“陷阱”，正如科佩德所描述的那样。
“总统将根据他的行动而起伏。我们将根据我们提出的在这场危机中让人们的生活变得更好的建议来决定兴衰，”他说。
前副总统乔·拜登——他在佛蒙特州参议员伯尼·桑德斯的巨大的代表优势已经导致许多人认为他是假定的提名人——已经阐述他自己的计划并向总统提出公开建议。他甚至表示，他愿意与特朗普私下交谈，提供建议，白宫已经表示愿意听取。
“他应该为所有需要的东西部署国防生产法案:手套、面具、面罩、长袍等。拜登星期四在电话中告诉记者。不久之后，特朗普宣布他将利用战时法案迫使私营公司开始生产呼吸机和口罩。“这应该在昨天，上周，一个月前完成，”拜登补充道。“现在就完成它。”
3月13日，副总统乔·拜登在伊利诺伊州芝加哥举行虚拟竞选活动。由于对COVID-19的担心，计划中的亲自伊利诺伊州竞选活动被改为虚拟活动。
在他的整个总统任期内，特朗普一直鼓吹经济指标，如创纪录的高股市和低失业率，以此证明他的任期是繁荣的原因。他的批评者认为大流行前的强劲经济归功于他的前任。但是突然出现的严峻的就业市场给总统带来了一个大问题，共和党战略家苏珊·德尔·派西奥说。
“坦白地说，这是他唯一喜欢的东西，”她告诉我新闻周刊。“这个国家是分裂的，但你不能带走经济。现在，他不会再继续下去了，这将非常困难。”
德尔·珀西奥认为，特朗普已经为政府设定了一个非官方的、但却很糟糕的目标，以此来衡量他们处理危机的能力。本周在白宫举行的每日冠状病毒简报会上，美国顶级医生公布了一份图表，预测美国死亡人数将在10万至24万之间。
“经济仍然很重要。但他们现在已经为预期设定了标准，”德尔·珀西奥说。“如果我们超过了那个数字，我们就没有做好我们应该做的。如果我们失败了，我们会做得更好。”
“这是一个可怕的，可怕的，可怕的测量方法，”她补充道。
FDR, REAGAN AND OBAMA WON RE-ELECTION WITH MORE THAN 7% UNEMPLOYMENT. AMID CORONAVIRUS, COULD TRUMP?
The latest jobs report released by the Labor Department Friday—the first since the novel coronavirus spread throughout the United States—painted a bleak picture.
The unemployment rate rose from the near 50-year low of 3.5 percent to 4.4 percent with the economy losing 701,000 jobs, the largest over-the-month increase since January 1975, according to the agency. The number of unemployed people rose by 1.4 million to 7.1 million.
The true number of jobless Americans is undoubtedly much higher, as the March jobs report only includes the first two weeks. March's last two weeks saw a record of at least 10 million people file for unemployment benefits, the ramifications of which won't be truly known until next month's report.
"Unemployment reached 25 percent at the depth of the Great Depression. We are in for a depression greater than in the 1930s," Michael Reich, an economics professor specializing in labor and politics at the University of California at Berkeley, told Newsweek. "I expect that unemployment, now already above 10 million, could increase to 40 million in the next several months."
The coronavirus pandemic has ushered American politics and its economy into uncharted territory at a breakneck pace. Social distancing guidelines have forced economic downturn in an attempt to stop the spread, and economists warn that the country is possibly headed to a place far darker than the Great Depression.
With primaries being canceled and efforts turning to vote-by-mail for the general election, the bleak jobs picture amid the coronavirus pandemic begs the question: Is this public health crisis likely to impact the polls in November?
President Donald Trump speaks from the press briefing room with members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force April 1 in Washington, DC.
If history has anything to say about the correlation between politics and unemployment rates, it's that the higher the jobless rate, the less likely an incumbent president is to win re-election. Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush lost with unemployment rates topping 7 percent.
But Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Barack Obama—who presided over the Great Depression and the Great Recession, respectively—along with Ronald Reagan, managed to win second terms, despite jobless rates north of 7 percent.
To be sure, no one knows for certain whether President Donald Trump will be re-elected or whether voters will opt for someone new, given the infinite number of variables: when will social distancing be relaxed? When will restaurants and non-essential businesses be allowed to re-open? The longer restrictions remain in place, the more arduous recovery will be.
"The longer the disruption, the more people are going to be extremely cautious when coming back and exposing themselves to risk," Brookings Institution economist Gary Burtless told Newsweek. "A lot of employers will have entered bankruptcy and not be in a good position to restart."
And perhaps equally important a factor, Republican and Democratic strategists suggest, is how Trump weathers the storm in the months to come. His approval rating has gone up slightly to tie his all-time high of around 46 percent, the same as when he first took office. But most Americans say they don't trust the information they receive from Trump, and he's been ridiculed as downplaying the severity of the virus from the onset while making inaccurate or false statements.
"This election is gonna be completely about the coronavirus pandemic. It will be the defining issue of this election: how the president responded and the economic impact," Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis told Newsweek. "At the end of the day, it will be a referendum on the president's ability to handle such an historic crisis. To date, I'd say [he's] less than stellar."
President Donald Trump speaks in the Rose Garden after introducing a new point-of-care COVID-19 test kit developed by Abbott Labs at the White House on March 30, 2020, in Washington, D.C. The United States has updated its guidelines to U.S. citizens to maintain current social distancing practices through the end of April after the number of reported coronavirus (COVID-19) deaths doubled to over 2,000 nationwide within two days.
It's not only about how Trump works to curb the spread and rebuild the economy, Kofinis argued. It's also about how Democrats handle the situation. The party would be shooting itself in the foot and falling into a "trap," as Kofinis described it, if partisan politics are injected into the midst of a public health crisis.
"The president is going to rise and fall based on his actions. We are going to rise and fall based on what we are proposing to make peoples' lives better through this crisis," he said.
Former Vice President Joe Biden—whose sizeable delegate lead over Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has led many to consider him the presumptive nominee—has laid out his own plan and offered the president public suggestions. He's gone so far as to say he's willing to speak with Trump privately to offer advice, which the White House has signaled they're open to.
"He should deploy the Defense Production Act for all the things needed: gloves, masks, face shields, gowns, etc.," Biden told reporters Thursday on a call. Shortly after, Trump announced that he'd be using the wartime act to force private companies to begin producing ventilators and masks. "That should be done yesterday, last week, a month ago," Biden added. "Get it done, now."
Vice President Joe Biden holds a virtual campaign event on March 13 in Chicago, Illinois. The scheduled in-person Illinois campaign event was changed to a virtual event because of fears of COVID-19.
Throughout his presidency, Trump has touted economic indicators like a record-high stock market and low unemployment rates as proof his tenure is responsible for a boom. His critics argue the strong economy before the pandemic was thanks to his predecessor. But the grim jobs market that's suddenly appeared poses a major problem for the president, said GOP strategist Susan Del Percio.
"Frankly, that's the one thing he had going for him," she told Newsweek. "This country was divided, but you couldn't take away the economy. Now, he's not going to have that to run on, and that's going to be very difficult."
Del Percio contended that Trump has already set an unofficial, yet poor goal for the administration to use in the wake of the crisis to gauge how well they handled it. At a daily coronavirus briefing at the White House this week, the country's top doctors unveiled a chart predicting the U.S. death toll will range from 100,000 to 240,000 people.
"The economy will still matter. But they've now set the bar with what to expect," said Del Percio. "If we're over that number, we didn't do as well as we should've. And if we're under, we did a better job."
"This is a horrible, horrible, horrible thing to use as a measurement," she added.
