Sure, choose not to lock down in response to coroanvirus, and you’ll have lower unemployment. You’ll also have more sickness and death:
Five of the six states with the nation’s lowest unemployment rates are in the Midwest, have Republican governors and have almost no restrictions intended to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The governors say their decisions not to impose harsher restrictions are paying off with fewer business closures and more hiring reflected in the strong jobless numbers. But economists say it’s not so simple. Although businesses that are struggling during the pandemic can benefit when governors opt not to require masks or limit in-door gatherings, other factors may play an even bigger role in producing such low unemployment rates.
And those same rules that could initially help the states’ economies also are blamed for their leading the nation in coronavirus infection rates, raising questions about whether their hands-off approach is sustainable. North Dakota and South Dakota have the most cases per capita in the U.S., and Nebraska and Iowa aren’t far behind.
“If hospitalization and death rates increase, then you have a motivation by politicians to close the economy down. That would be very deadly and push unemployment rates back up,” said Ernie Goss, an economist at Creighton University in Omaha.
For now, though, those Midwestern states have a lock atop the unemployment rankings, far below the national average rate for September of 7.9%. Nebraska leads the nation with a 3.5% unemployment rate, followed by South Dakota, Vermont, North Dakota, Iowa and Missouri [“Midwestern States with Few Virus Rules Have Low Unemployment,” AP via KOTA-TV, 2020.11.02].
438 South Dakotans are dead, and 47,850 have gotten sick with coronavirus, but thank goodness most of us still have our low-wage jobs!
The inescapable conclusion is that governors like South Dakota’s Kristi Noem and Nebraska’s Pete Ricketts are prioritizing protecting jobs and sales tax in the short-term over stamping out the pandemic and providing the basis for sustained long-term recovery. They are prioritizing less bad economic data over human life.
And those with govt jobs, on this GOP, are out campaigning on the public’s dime.
Edward Wong
@ewong
·
14h
NEW: Top Trump officials are accused of using taxpayer resources to campaign for Trump — Pompeo, O’Brien, Barr, Wolf, Ratcliffe. NYT
You are really a moron. If SD had shut down completely you’d be bitching about unemployment. It’s pathetic, we get it….you hate Republicans.
You always complain about our state govt too. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2020/10/13/tax-revenue-swings-complicate-state-budgeting
SD must be doing something right…
Steve,
Perhaps we can pay back the $Billions the Federal government gave/gives us every year.
To paraphrase Thomas Paine, “give me guns and give them death.”
This is the Republican “final solution” to the funding issues with Social Security. Kill the old and infirm.
Steve, I’m not sur what the point you wish to make about the of the volatility of state revenues. We tax necessities of life that, pandemic or not, still have to be purchased — food for example. We also do not have revenues from volatile things like natural resources. Instead of grabbing a headline, I think some level of “why” needs to be part of your argument that things are fine here.
Conversely, that stability means that there is not opportunity to expand state funding needs into warranted/needed areas. A stable position must also be put in context of overall strength.
Overall, I have yet to meet the “pro-life” conservative that doesn’t switch over to pro-profit when the costs of preserving/protecting those lives start to compete with the bottom line.
Steve, you are a raging moron (goose, gander and all that). If our national and state Republican so-called “leaders” had shut everything down at the beginning of the pandemic like they should have, passed legislation to give everyone about 6 months of income instead of giving millions to their fatcat cronies in the name of “Covid relief,” we could have all socially distanced like we should have instead of having to go out and sweat all over each other for crap SD wages just to get by. Republicans are always the reason we can’t have nice things.
Cory, I think you’re religious, aren’t you, so I’ll spare you most of my thoughts on the fairy tale known as the Bible, but guess what KovidKristi was yappin’ about on FB today. Was it Covid? Nope. Was it our legacy of “Driver’s Ed teachers” in the Attorney General’s office? Nope. It was a Bible verse, which I’m not even sure of what she’s getting at, unless she thinks God “has his hand on Trump” or some crap. And, 8 new deaths today, 2 in the 40-49 range, 1 each in 50s and 60s. It’s killing younger people, MoronKristi, not just “olds.” Oh, and seventy whoppin’ eight (78) new hospitalizations for Covid in this state, a whopping 20 percent increase. It’s tough to get a percent increase like that as the numbers get higher, but, by golly, EmptyEyesNoem did it. What a joke she is. What an absolute joke all Republicans are.
Is Newsweek the new Fox nooze?
Today may be the most important day of the people who believe in, the concept of human rights and individual choice.
Steve, you don’t win by agu8ng a hypothetical or by shouting “moron.” You don’t know what I’d say in an alternate universe where we pursued alternate policies and achieved different results. But I’ll speculate that, if South Dakota had shut down completely, and if we had used the $1.25B in socialist assistance to tide everyone through that shutdown, and if we all had agreed to come out of that shutdown still wearing masks and being careful, then, as KJ says, we’d be in a much more sustainable economic position.
I don’t hate Republicans. I do hate hypocrisy. What’s more important: jobs or lives? The self-professed prolifers are saying, jobs!
KJ, I’m not religious at all… but sometimes when I see statements like the one you mention from Noem today, I wonder if I might actually respect, live by, and advocate policies that support Christian principles more than vocally “pro-life” GOPers like Noem.
drumpf body count for election day 2020….
United States
Coronavirus Cases:
9,687,343
Deaths:
238,581
Hope everyone gets their vote in without wingnut chicanery. I have a respiratory infection, feel lousy but am getting better, and I am off to bed for the duration, I hope.
Yeah, sorry about that “religious” thing, Cory. I must have read something into something you wrote at some time. Well, I’m amazed yet not surprised at the same time; pretty sure Dump has won. Hopefully I’ll have a comfy refrigerator box to live in when they take Social Security and Medicare away.
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuh, how are you pretty sure Trump has won? Wisconsin just announced votes have all been tallied and Biden is up by 20k. Biden is up in Michigan with remaining votes mostly from the Detroit area, which favors Biden. If he takes Arizona and Nevada, which he leads in, he wins. He doesn’t even need Pennsylvania.
KJ, Master has always said he is an atheist, at least as far back as I have been commentring here.
Believe you me, Dicta, I’m strongly voting for your comments over mine. Maybe I was reading the numbers wrong, but they looked worrisome to me.
Mike from Iowa, yeah, if I had a buck for every time I was wrong, we’d all be eating prime rib till we were sick of it.
Sickness and death, you say? drumpf’s personalized body count for the day after perdition….
United States
Coronavirus Cases:
9,776,006
Deaths:
239,568
In about 10 work days I expect at least a quarter million bodies for drumpf to campaign on.