The president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden, promised on Friday that he will lay the foundations of a new economic aid plan before taking office on January 20, and amid the deterioration of the labor market.
Confident of having control of Congress and with the poor employment figures released that same Friday, Biden advocated “providing immediate additional support to the families of workers and companies.”
His priority will, however, be to speed up vaccination against the coronavirus, he said.
“The new plan should allow local and national authorities to maintain the employment of educators, police, firefighters and public health agents,” he said.
In addition, the President-elect also expressed his hope to quickly raise the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour.
“In the midst of this pandemic, there are millions of people out of work, unable to pay their rent or their loans,” Biden said.
“They line up for hours to find food. Think about it. United States, people who line up in their cars waiting for a meal to take to the table for their families, ”he added.
In December, jobs were lost
The US economy lost jobs in December for the first time since April, the Labor Department announced over the weekend, amid rising Covid-19 cases and activity-restricting measures.
He reported that 140,000 jobs were lost in December, a far worse outlook than anticipated by analysts, who expected 112,000 jobs to be created.
The unemployment rate remained stable, at 6.7%, and in line with expectations, a sign that labor market participation is degrading. The Labor Department also revised the number of new jobs for November upwards, to 336,000.
The number of jobless people also remained at 10.7 million people.
“In December, job losses in the entertainment and hotel sector and in private education were partially offset by increases (in positions) in services to professionals and companies, retail trade and construction,” detailed the Department of Labor in its release.
The number of people who entered temporary unemployment but ended up permanently losing their job continues to rise, reaching 3 million workers.
Likewise, in the United States there are 4 million long-term unemployed, for more than 27 weeks, the same figure that was registered in November.
Million dollar mistake
On the other hand, it was announced that millions of aid payments for the pandemic in the United States were deposited in incorrect accounts due to an error of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS, for its acronym in English), according to the firm Intuit TurboTax, you are helping to distribute the payments.
Two sources in the banking sector confirmed the error, which will delay the distribution of aid.
“For those who don’t receive direct deposit, they should watch their mail for a paper check or prepaid debit card,” the IRS said in a notice.
For its part, Intuit TurboTax tweeted: “Unfortunately, due to an IRS error, millions of payments were sent to the wrong accounts and some may not have received their stimulus payment.”
One of the sources said the IRS used old information for millions of accounts, which would be closed or inactive. “Banks are working with the IRS to return and redirect declined payments to the correct accounts, but it is unclear how long this process will take,” the source said.
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