Some Background about Police Shootings [feedly]

A lot of useful data here, from several studies summarized by Tim Taylor. I think it still misses the level of corruption and racism, and thus the need for many departments to be torn down first and built up again with some of these reforms, and others related to community controls, in place.

Some Background about Police Shootings
https://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2020/07/some-background-about-police-shootings.html

The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science devoted its January 2020 issue to a set of 14 articles on the theme of   "Fatal Police Shootings: Patterns, Policy, and Prevention." I'll post a Table of Contents for the issue below. Here, I'll just note some of the lessons one might take away from a few of the papers in the issue.

Franklin Zimring lays out some useful background (citations omitted): 

Police shoot and kill about a thousand civilians each year, and other types of conflict and custodial force add more than one hundred other lives lost to the annual total death toll. This is a death toll far in excess of any other fully developed nation, and the existing empirical evidence suggests that at least half and perhaps as many as 80 percent of these killings are not necessary to safeguard police or protect other citizens from life-threatening force. ... 

One reason why U.S. police kill so many civilians is that U.S. police themselves are vastly more likely than police in other rich nations to die from violent civilian attacks. In Great Britain or Germany, the number of police deaths from civilian attack most years is either one or zero. In the United States—four or five times larger—the death toll from civilian assaults is fifty times larger. And the reason for the larger danger to police is the proliferation of concealable handguns throughout the social spectrum. When police officers die from assault in Germany or England, the cause is usually a firearm, but firearms ownership is low, and concealed firearms are rare. There are, however, at least 60 million concealable handguns in the United States and the firearm is the cause of an officer's death in 97.5 percent of intentional fatal assaults, an effective monopoly of life-threatening force even though more than 95 percent of all assaults against police and an even higher fraction of those said to cause injury are not gun related. ... 

A theme that runs loosely through a number of these essays is that police-citizen interactions can involve "tight coupling," which is organizational behavior jargon for an interrelated system with lots of stresses and little slack. A "tightly coupled" system is bad at dealing with unexpected shocks, which can cause catastrophic breakdowns. A situation where a police officer is feeling threatened and stress, and as if there is a need for immediate urgent action, is also a situation where racial prejudices about who poses a danger and what actions are justified in response more easily boil to the surface. 

An implication of this insight is that focusing just on the situations where a breakdown (in this case, a policy shooting) occurs runs a risk of missing the point, which is that the system is fragile and prone to failure. Thus,  Zimring points out both that criminal prosecutions in cases of police shooting are extremely low--indeed, so low as to raise concerns that justice is not being done in many cases--but also to argue that while responding after-the-fact with prosecutions of police who kill someone can be a useful step in some cases, it misses the broader point. He writes:

One important problem in the governmental control of unnecessary police use of deadly force is the fact that police officers have been operating with near impunity when efforts are made by citizens or law enforcement to prosecute police officers for criminal misuse of their lethal weapons. The thousand or so killings of civilians by police officers in the United States each year have in recent history produced about one felony conviction of a uniformed officer per year. According to research by Philip Stinson of Bowling Green University, there were in the years 2000 to 2014 an average of 4.4 cases per year in the United States where police killings resulted in murder or manslaughter charges against one or more officers, and the prospects for obtaining felony conviction in these cases were low. The odds of a death producing a felony conviction were close to one in one thousand. ...

If the high death rates generated by police activity in the United States were for the most part the result of blameworthy activity by a few bad cops, then criminal law would make sense as a primary control strategy. But the problems are a mix of ineffective administrative controls, vague regulations, and the absence of administrative policy analyses and incentives for reducing death rates. It is hard to pin 100 percent of the blame for this mess on one or two officers. ... The critical problem with reform priorities in the first years after Ferguson, Missouri, was the exclusive emphasis on criminal prosecutions and criminal prosecutors. Ineffective police administrators—and the vague and permissive nonspecificity of their deadly force standards—have been unjustly spared in the reexamination of why the epidemic of civilian deaths is a chronic part of our national experience.

So what is to be done to adjust the system of policing. There are a number of There are a number of proposals for improving police performance across-the-board, including a hoped-for reduction in the number of shootings. But the evidence in support of the efficacy of these steps is somewhere between weak and nonexistent. Robin S. Engel, Hannah D. McManus, Gabrielle T. Isaza write: "Of the litany of recommendations believed to reduce police shootings, five have garnered widespread support: body-worn cameras, de-escalation training, implicit bias training, early intervention systems, and civilian oversight. These highly endorsed interventions, however, are not supported by a strong body of empirical evidence that demonstrates their effectiveness." 

They review the partial and limited evidence on these policies. They point out that when it comes to public policy, it isn't always possible or desirable to wait for years of study to be sure that something works. As the social scientists say, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Instead, jurisdictions that are trying these policies should also be trying to couple new policies with rigorous evaluation. They describe the experience of the University of Cincinnati Department of Public Safety, which works closely with the Cincinnati police: 

This is the approach we used to facilitate the reform efforts within the UCPD. Our first step was to redesign data collection systems to include the data necessary to evaluate the impact of our work. Our executive team modified existing data collection processes and also mandated the collection of new data. Changes in data collection instruments and practices resulted in new data generated during traffic and pedestrian stops, during the citizen complaint process, through the review and cataloging of BWC footage, during potential use-of-force encounters (e.g., when officers draw their Tasers or firearms but do not deploy them), along with multiple citizen and officer surveys. Each of these data collection changes required an accompanying change in policy, training, and supervisory oversight to ensure that the data were being properly collected and used. The UCPD is now in a better position to test specific propositions about the effectiveness of our own reform efforts.

What other factors might matter? Greg Ridgeway writes in his essay: 

Using data from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the Major Cities' Chiefs Association (MCCA), the analysis finds that police officers who join the NYPD later in their careers have a lower shooting risk: for each additional year of their recruitment age, the odds of being shooters declines by 10 percent. Both officer race and prior problem behavior (e.g., losing a firearm, crashing a department vehicle) predict up to three times greater odds of shooting, yet officers who made numerous misdemeanor arrests were four times less likely to shoot.

Laurie O. Robinson adds: 

When President Obama asked my White House Task Force cochair, Chuck Ramsey, and me if there was one area we would have delved into if given more time, we said that area was recruitment. American policing in the future will be shaped by the men and women now coming into the police academies, yet at a time when there are calls for advancing a "guardian" culture in policing, many training academies are still organized as military-style boot camps emphasizing a "warrior" approach ...... 

Robinson also notes that there have been lots of changes in use-of-force policies in major police departments. As she writes: 

Larger police agencies are, in fact, taking steps to revise their use of force policies, and it is having an impact. According to a survey of forty-seven of the largest law enforcement agencies in the United States from 2015 to 2017 conducted by the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) and the National Police Foundation, 39 percent of the departments changed their use of force policies and revised their training to incorporate de-escalation and beef up scenario-based training approaches. Significantly, officer-involved shootings during this period dropped by 21 percent in the agencies surveyed ...

The editor of the volume, Lawrence W. Sherman, suggests in an essay near the close of the volume that there are three proposals "that seem to have the greatest chance of winning a political consensus, and then winning implementation." He writes: 

These proposals are

1. to empower police to seize guns without a court order, as may appear necessary to them in a "split-second decision";
2. to develop the core tactics underlying systems that seek to reduce "tight coupling" that creates "split-second decisions" and leave too little time to save lives; and
3. to equip police with more powerful first aid strategies, from hi-tech bandages in every police car to policies enabling police to "scoop and run" with every shooting or stabbing victim.

But ultimately, a fundamental problem is that there are something like 18,000 police departments across the United States, and when a police shooting occurs, the US system of government often assumes that the same local law enforcement mechanisms that include the police in a central role will also be able to investigate the police. It's not a surprise that this often doesn't work well. In some cases, the state steps in, but as Zimring points out: "The unit of government that maintains authority in many other criminal justice operations—the state level—usually has no concern with and little statutory authority about policing."

Thus, Zimring suggests that there could be a national-level Office of Police Conduct, which can serve as a clearinghouse for complaints, reports, and information He writes: 

There is also one important foreign model of a national fact-gathering institution that could also be incorporated into the U.S. government's Department of Justice, perhaps in the civil rights division. Police departments in England and Wales have decentralized administrations, not unlike the United States. But the United Kingdom also created an Independent Office for Police Conduct (formerly known as the Independent Police Complaints Commission) that has become a statistical and analysis resource that is worthy of emulation on this side of the Atlantic ... 

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

The US Dollar in the Global Economy [feedly]

Tim Taylor and a primer on the role of the dollar in the world economy

The US Dollar in the Global Economy
https://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-us-dollar-in-global-economy.html

The US dollar remains the preeminent global currency. The Committee on the Global Financial System describes the network of international US dollar funding and some of the tradeoffs in "US dollar funding: an international perspective" (June 2020, CGFS Papers No 65).

The two left-hand red bars in this table show the US share of global trade and the US share of the global economy. The other blue bars show the role of the US dollar in cross-border loans, international debt securities, foreign exchange transaction volume, official foreign exchange reserves, invoicing of international trade, and payments made through the international network (mainly but not all banks) called SWIFT.  

The CGFS report goes into considerable detail on the role of the US dollar in each of these areas. But here's an overview of pluses and minuses for the world economy: 

Global economic and financial activity depends on the ability of US dollar funding to flow smoothly and efficiently between users. The broad international use of a dominant funding currency generates significant benefits to the global financial system, but also presents risks. Benefits arise from economies of scale and network effects, which reduce the costs of transferring capital and risks around the financial system. At the same time, financial globalisation, coupled with the dominant role of the US dollar in international markets, may have led to a more synchronised behaviour of actors in the global financial system, at least in part because many international investors and borrowers are exposed to the US dollar. As a consequence, it is possible that shocks stemming from US monetary policy, US credit conditions or general spikes in global risk aversion get transmitted across the globe. These dynamics increase the need for participants to manage the risk of a retrenchment in cross-border flows.

In short, having a currency that can be widely used around the global economy--whether directly or as a fallback whenever needed--is a huge benefit. But one tradeoff is that many players in global markets around the world are dependent on having access to a continuing supply of US dollars (say, to make payments or repay loans). This may not be a problem in many cases--for example, perhaps the party in question has a US dollar credit line at a big bank. But many other parties around the world may not have direct access to US dollars when needed. 

In addition, when someone who is in an economy that doesn't use US dollars promises to make payments in US dollars, there is always a danger that if exchange rates shift, that payment may become more difficult to make. 

And also in addition, if there was for whatever reason a shortage of US dollar financing for the global economy as a whole, the problems would hit in all kinds of locations and markets all at once. Because of the global dependence on US dollars, any actions of the  Federal Reserve or the US banking authorities can have outsized and unexpected effects on the rest of the global economy. As a policy response, the Federal Reserve has set up "swap lines" with a number of central banks around the world, where the Fed agrees in advance to swap US dollars for the currency of that central bank during a time of crisis, so that the other central bank, in turn, could make sure those US dollars were available in its own economy. 

Problems along these lines arose during the global financial crisis from 2007-2009, and again during the crisis in European sovereign debt markets in 2010. Although the main focus of this report is an overall perspectives on international US dollar funding, it does include some discussion of how these issues erupted in March 2020 as concerns over COVID-19 erupted. Financial and corporate actors around the world had an increased desire to hold US dollars, as a safety precaution in uncertain times. The foreign exchange value of the dollar appreciated about 8% in a couple of weeks. Those who had been planning to trade in US dollars or borrow in US dollars, around the world, found that it was more difficult and costly to do so. The report notes: 

The prospect of a severe economic downturn drove a significant increase in demand for US dollar liquidity. Many businesses around the globe, anticipating sharp declines in their revenues, sought to borrow funds (including US dollars) to meet upcoming expenses such as paying suppliers or servicing debts. US dollars were in particularly high demand given the dollar's extensive international use in the invoicing of trade, short-term trade finance and long-term funding ... Faced with uncertainty about how large such needs would be, many firms, as a precaution, chose to draw on any source of US dollar funding they could obtain.

The activities of NBFIs [non-bank financial institutions] also appear to have contributed to strong demand for US dollar liquidity. In recent years, non-US insurers and pension funds have funded large positions in US dollar assets by borrowing US dollars on a hedged basis ... The appreciation of the US dollar meant that these NBFIs in some jurisdictions were required to make margin payments, potentially adding to demand for US dollar funding. ... At the same time, US dollar funding became much more difficult to obtain in global capital markets as suppliers of funding shifted into cash and very liquid assets. ...

Finally, EMEs [emerging market economies] that raise US dollar funding have faced particular strain. Over the past decade, corporations, banks and sovereigns in EMEs had issued large volumes of US dollar debt securities, partly owing to a shift away from bank-intermediated funding ... The pandemic has seen fund managers substantially shift their portfolios away from US dollar bonds issued by EME borrowers ...  At the same time, many EME governments and corporations have an increased demand for funding (across currencies), owing to fiscal expansions and sharply lower revenues, including from commodity exports. Together, these pressures have contributed to a spike in US dollar bond yields for EME sovereigns and corporations ...

 The US Federal Reserve worked with central banks around the world to make sure that the flow of US dollar financing was only hindered in a way that gave it a reasonable chance to adjust, not harshly interrupted. With the widespread use of the US dollar around the world, and the interconnections of the world economy, the Fed has little choice but to accept some responsibility for the availability of US dollars not just in the US economy, but around the world. a

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

China Is Winning the Trillion-Dollar 5G War [feedly]

China Is Winning the Trillion-Dollar 5G War
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/china-is-winning-the-trillion-dollar-5g-war/2020/07/12/876cb2f6-c493-11ea-a825-8722004e4150_story.html?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=wp_business

China is building tens of thousands of 5G base stations every week. Whether it wins technological dominance or not, domestic supply chains may be revived and allow the country to maintain – and advance — its position as the factory floor of the world, even as Covid-19 forces a rethink in how globalization is done. 

By the end of this year, China will have more than half a million of these towers on its way to a goal of 5 million, a fast climb from around 200,000 already in use, enabling faster communication for hundreds of millions of smartphone users. By comparison, South Korea has a nearly 10% penetration rate for 5G usage, the highest globally. The much-smaller country had 115,000 such stations operating as of April.

The towers are part of a raft of projects that the State Council announced last week to boost industrial innovation under the "New Infrastructure" campaign aimed at furthering "the deep integration of the Internet of Things" and the real economy. With an aim of spending $1.4 trillion by 2025, the aggressive buildup toward a more automated industrial landscape will give China a renewed advantage where it already dominates: manufacturing. 

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The coronavirus shut down factories and industrial sectors, triggering a rethink of supply chains – away from China. What analysts are calling "peak" globalization and the rise of factory automation could shift production to higher-cost countries in North America and Southeast Asia. It will take a while, but the global dependence on China will come down, the thinking goes. Still, with trade ravaged by Covid-19, other countries and telecom operators will struggle to match China's spending.For China, there's an opportunity to clear the way to forcefully implement its industrial policy agenda, without interference from criticism over subsidies and unfair competition. The so-called Central Comprehensively Deepening Reforms Commission, headed by President Xi Jinping, has approved a three-year plan to give state-owned enterprises yet more sway in the economy.

Beijing's ambitious programs are still in the construction phase. Macro base stations are the nuts and bolts of building out 5G networks, and will exceed their 4G predecessors by almost 1.5 times. Capital expenditure could peak at $30 billion this year, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts, up from $5 billion last year. Beijing wants more local governments and companies to get involved. Each station costs around 500,000 yuan ($71,361) and has a long value chain that includes electrical components, semiconductors, antenna units and circuit boards. The vast number of companies spawned by the project are all contributing to China's push to get ahead. 

For the industrial complex, the onset of 5G will enable greater connectivity between machines and much more data transfer and collection. Fifth-generation technology is expected to have a big impact through increasingly efficient and automated factory equipment, and tracking the movement of inventory and progress of production lines and assets. Manufacturing is expected to account for almost 40% of 5G-enabled industry output, according to  Bernstein Research analysts.

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From sensors and data clouds, to chips and collaborative robots and computer-controlled machinery, a whole universe of little-known Chinese companies is coming to the fore. Memory chip maker Gigadevice Semiconductor (Beijing) Inc. has ridden the trend, as has Yonyou Network Technology Co., China's version of Salesforce.com Inc. For some of these companies, government subsidies are a significant part of earnings, as my colleague Shuli Ren has noted. Stock prices have surged in recent months for firms like Shennan Circuits Co., which makes printed circuit boards, and Maxscend Microelectronics Co., a manufacturer of radio frequency chips. Some are seeing their market capitalization values balloon by billions of dollars as Beijing has upped the ante on new infrastructure.  

To be sure, it isn't hard to imagine a hinterland speckled with ghost towers and base stations in coming years as China's propensity to overbuild beyond any reasonable capacity kicks in. The past shows that questions of quality will arise when too many sub-par manufacturers crop up, incentivized by the state's largesse. Nonetheless, this is the technology of the not-so-distant future, and building up the basic infrastructure isn't misguided.  

As Covid-19 absorbs the world's attention, Beijing's steady focus on implementing this industrial policy may make China the manufacturer of parts that most countries will need – soon. In other words, it will yet again become the factory floor, mastering the production of all things 5G.

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This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Anjani Trivedi is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering industrial companies in Asia. She previously worked for the Wall Street Journal.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Workers are pushed to the brink as they continue to wait for delayed unemployment payments [feedly]

Workers are pushed to the brink as they continue to wait for delayed unemployment payments
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/13/unemployment-payment-delays/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=wp_business

Alexis Herdez has been filing for unemployment every week since April, shortly after she was laid off on her first day of work at a bridal clothing store.

But more than two months later, the 23-year-old in Lexington, Ky., has yet to receive any payment.

She and her husband have been struggling to pay rent and make their monthly car payment.

The automated phone system for the state's unemployment system takes her to a queue for a callback that has yet to come. Visits to state offices have been fruitless. While Herdez was finally able to get an appointment with someone at the unemployment agency to look at her case, it's not until August, she said.

The pandemic's toll on workers who have been furloughed or laid off like Herdez is measured in numbers that splash across headlines: 1.4 million new weekly unemployment claims and 18 million people are already receiving continuous unemployment insurance. Tens of thousands of workers at Levi's, Wells Fargo and United Airlines learned this past week they could be furloughed or laid off in coming months, sending those workers to seek jobless benefits as well.

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Four months into the worst recession since the Great Depression, tens of thousands of workers like Herdez across the country have filed for jobless claims but have yet to receive payments. Many are now in dire financial straits.

"We've been only able to make half payments on everything," Herdez said in an interview. "We bought a large amount of groceries and have been taking things out of the freezer, but as the weeks go by, it's hard to figure out whether to pay bills or whether we have enough food to last the week."

The issue has spilled back into public view in recent weeks, as thousands of frustrated workers awaiting payments have camped out, sometimes overnight, in front of unemployment offices in states like Oklahoma, Alabama and Kentucky.

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The ongoing delays are the result of a confluence of crises, experts say.

A flood of new jobless applications — about 50 million — has overwhelmed state unemployment offices over the past four months. The agencies themselves are hampered by years of neglect. They rely on reduced staffs and badly outdated technology after years of budget cuts, often at the behest of business groups and Republican legislatures. Issues with fraud and user confusion over the new rules and filing process have further bogged down the process.

But cases like Herdez show what happens when workers simply run out of money and the social safety net malfunctions with defaulted payments and trips to food banks. In more desperate situations, workers become homeless.

"We've kind of abdicated our responsibility to the unemployed," George Wentworth, a senior counsel at the National Employment Law Project and an expert on unemployment insurance. "There need to be more standards and those standards need to be rigorously enforced by the federal government."

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The Department of Labor does not track the percentage of unemployment benefits that have been processed, an agency spokeswoman said in an email. The agency did not offer a comment on the issue of delays in processing benefits.

But previously unreleased data compiled by Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, illustrates the scope. By the end of May, about 18.8 million out of 33 million claims — 57 percent — had been paid nationwide. That number has steadily improved from 47 percent of paid claims at the end of April and 14 percent at the end of March.

In Wisconsin, where about 13 percent of claims remained unprocessed as of July 7, residents told local reporters that they had waited 10 weeks or longer for their claims to be processed, leaving some on the brink of bankruptcy and eviction. The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development said through a spokesman that the average time from application to payment is 21 days. In Pennsylvania, another 15 percent of claims were still in review as of mid-June.

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Oklahoma has approved 235,000 out of about 590,000 claims, with about 2,000 still under review as of June 21, but the state also has denied a whopping 350,000 claims, said Shelley Zumwalt, the interim director of the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission. Zumwalt said a small portion of the denied claims — about 47,000 — are people who have applied for the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), a program for gig and self-employed workers who must get rejected from regular unemployment insurance before qualifying for the expanded benefit for gig workers.

Nevada has also had issues processing these gig worker jobless claims, fulfilling only 74 percent of the 106,667 eligible PUA claims by June 19.

People wait to speak with representatives from the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission about unemployment claims on July 9 in Midwest City, Okla. (Sue Ogrocki/AP)

Samuel Jarman, 25, filed for unemployment in Oklahoma in early April, after his start date at a new job to work on software for a payroll services company was pushed back indefinitely. Jarman said the issues he's had collecting unemployment insurance were part of the reason he moved back to his parents' house.

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It took nearly eight weeks to get his first payment, a lump sum of all the benefits he was owed at that point. But last month, his claim was flagged for fraud, and his payments stopped, he said. He doesn't know why his claim was flagged for fraud. But at one point, one of the people who helped him with his claim over the phone asked him for his full social security number — something he thought was suspicious, as workers are not supposed to do that, state officials say.

Jarman has had problems getting through to the unemployment office in recent weeks, ending up trapped in an automated phone system unable to reach anyone with answers. He said he's frustrated by elected officials, like Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R), who he feels have not been transparent and fail to take threats raised by the pandemic seriously.

"They keep saying 'unprecedented.' We're four months into this — how unprecedented is it still?" he said. "If you're up front about it, it's a lot better than just lying to our faces saying it's all going smoothly."

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Other unemployed workers described similarly time-consuming attempts to navigate unemployment systems.

Kelly Johnson, 48, a restaurant manager and single mother of five in Dunedin, Fla., waited almost two months to receive her first payment after she was furloughed in March. She spent much of April calling the state's Department of Economic Opportunity, about 400 times, she estimates. She wasn't able to get through.

When her payment did finally arrive, it was backdated just two weeks. She said she's given up on recovering any of her owed benefits, or filing another claim to recoup income from personal training work that also evaporated during the pandemic.

So she makes do every week with the $71 she gets from the state as well as the $600 in federal supplemental benefits.

"It's just messed up," she said. "It's an overloaded system."

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One problem is that some states have made it tougher to access benefits. Florida was one of many Republican-led states that restricted unemployment benefits in the aftermath of the Great Recession. After sustained lobbying from corporations hoping to reduce unemployment taxes, the state, under then Gov. Rick Scott, limited unemployment to 12 weeks and capped weekly benefits at $275, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

By contrast, unemployed workers in Florida, and across the nation, are temporarily eligible for $600 in supplemental federal benefits every week, but that's slated to expire at the end of the month unless Congress extends them.

A report written in 2017 by Wentworth, the unemployment expert, found those types of changes, which both limit the amount of benefits paid out and add restrictions, disqualifications or higher burdens for workers applying, had drastically reduced the number of unemployed workers collecting benefits in states around the country.

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"States that have been the most restrictive in moving people off unemployment insurance — those states have had the hardest time processing claims now," Stettner said in an interview.

The pandemic has brought a multitude of new challenges, according to state unemployment offices. Zumwalt, the newly appointed director of Oklahoma's unemployment agency, said the state's system relies on a mainframe computer from 1978, which has hampered the speed with which it can process large batches of claims.

"Remember the Oregon Trail? That's what my mainframe looks like," she said. "We have many full-time people whose job is just making sure that thing doesn't die."

Zumwalt said staffing at the agency had dropped to 450 from 700 since 2017, although officials are making a push to hire workers.

She also rented out space in a convention center outside of Oklahoma City for the unemployed to get help with outstanding claims, which has improved their ability to process them — from about 170 claims a day to around 500 to 600 now. Claimants are given masks and have their temperature taken before entering, she said.

Still, there is a never-ending list of knots to untangle.

Nearly 200 Vietnamese speakers showed up, unexpectedly, needing help and language assistance one day. A pregnant woman's water broke while she was waiting in line. Others have overheated while waiting on hot summer days. Many of the complaints are complicated to untangle, like those from people like Jarman, the software troubleshooter, who have had claims flagged as fraudulent, in some instances because they've been impersonated, Zumwalt said.

"Every person that walks in my door is angry, and they have a right to be angry," she said.

The state has forwarded 90,000 claims to be investigated for fraud.

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Unemployed workers on facing an uncertain future | Voices from the Pandemic

Over 10 million Americans filed for unemployment in March. Here are some of their stories. (Monica Rodman/The Washington Post)

Other states systems are similarly bogged down by outdated or poorly designed technology, concerns about fraud and staffing issues. In Nevada, the interim director for the state unemployment system resigned in June after facing threats from angry workers. In Washington state, 100 National Guard members have been called in to help sort through issues around fraudulent cases.

The delays in getting jobless benefits to the unemployed have led to some informal organizing — social media groups with thousands of members have cropped up on Facebook and other sites in states like Wisconsin, Nevada, Florida and Oklahoma.

Are you unemployed due to the pandemic? The Post has a new Facebook group to help you navigate.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Extending the $600 weekly unemployment boost would support millions of workers: See updated state unemployment data [feedly]

Extending the $600 weekly unemployment boost would support millions of workers: See updated state unemployment data
https://www.epi.org/blog/extending-the-600-weekly-unemployment-boost-would-support-millions-of-workers-see-updated-state-unemployment-data/

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released the most recent unemployment insurance (UI) claims data yesterday, showing that another 1.4 million people filed for regular UI benefits last week (not seasonally adjusted) and 1.0 million for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), the new program for workers who aren't eligible for regular UI, such as gig workers. As of last week, more than 35 million people in the workforce are either receiving or have recently applied for unemployment benefits—regular or PUA.

Figure A and Table 1 show the total number of workers who either made it through at least the first round of regular state UI processing as of June 27 (these are known as "continued" claims) or filed initial regular UI claims during the week ending July 4. Three states had more than one million workers either receiving regular UI benefits or waiting for their claim to be approved: California (3.1 million), New York (1.7 million), and Texas (1.4 million). Seven additional states had more than half a million workers receiving or awaiting benefits.

While the largest U.S. states unsurprisingly have the highest numbers of UI claimants, some smaller states have larger shares of the workforce filing for unemployment. Figure A and Table 1 also show the numbers of workers in each state who are receiving or waiting for regular UI benefits as a share of the pre-pandemic labor force in February 2020. In four states and the District of Columbia, more than one in six workers are receiving regular UI benefits or waiting on their claim to be approved: Hawaii (19.7%), Nevada (19.3%), New York (17.8%), District of Columbia (17.6%), and Oregon (17.0%).

Figure A

Figure A and Table 2 show the total number of workers who either made it through at least the first round of PUA processing—the new federal program that extends unemployment compensation to workers who are not eligible for regular UI but are out of work due to the pandemic—by June 20 or filed initial PUA claims during the weeks of June 27 or July 4. We do not sum the PUA claims with regular UI claims because some states have misreported PUA claims in their initial claims data, leading to potential double counting.1

As of last week, DOL reported that over 15 million workers across 48 states and the District of Columbia are receiving or waiting on a decision for PUA benefits, which underscores the importance of extending benefits to those who would otherwise not have been eligible. Five states have at least a million workers in this category: Pennsylvania (3.0 million), Arizona (2.3 million), California (1.9 million), Michigan (1.1 million), and New York (1.1 million). New Hampshire and West Virginia still have not reported any PUA claims. Florida, Georgia, and Oklahoma have reported initial PUA claims, but have yet to report any continuing claims.

We should despair for the millions who have lost their jobs and for their families, and our top priority as a country should be protecting the health and safety of workers and our broader communities by paying workers to stay home when possible, whether that means working from home some or all of the time, using paid leave, or claiming UI benefits. When workers are providing absolutely essential services, they must have access to adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) and paid sick leave. The current spike in coronavirus cases across the country—and subsequent re-shuttering of certain businesses—show the devastating costs of reopening the economy prematurely.

As we look at the aggregate measures of economic harm, it is also important to remember that this recession is deepening racial inequalities. Black communities are suffering more from this pandemic—both physically and economically—as a result of, and in addition to, systemic racism and violence. Both Black and Hispanic workers are more likely than white workers to be worried about exposure to the coronavirus at work and bringing it home to their families. These communities, and Black women in particular, should be centered in policy solutions.

To mitigate the economic harm to workers, Congress should extend the across-the-board $600 increase in weekly unemployment benefits well past its expiration at the end of July. If Congress does not extend these benefits through next year, it could cost us more than 5 million jobs and $500 million in personal income. Figure B, at the end of this post, shows these expected job losses by state.

As part of the next federal relief and recovery package, Congress should also include worker protections, investments in our democracy, and resources for coronavirus testing and contact tracing (which is necessary to reopen the economy). At the same time, policymakers should prioritize long-overdue overhauls of federal labor law and continue to strengthen wage standards that protect workers and help boost consumer demand.

The package should also include substantial aid to state and local governments so that they can invest in the services that will allow the economy to recover, particularly public health and education. Without this aid, a prolonged depression is inevitable, especially if state and local governments make the same budget and employment cuts that slowed the recovery after the Great Recession. More than five million workers would likely lose their jobs by the end of 2021, harming women and Black workers in particular since they are disproportionately likely to work for state and local governments.

Figure B

Table 1

Table 2

1. Unless otherwise noted, the numbers in this blog post are the ones reported by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), which they receive from the state agencies that administer UI. While DOL is asking states to report regular UI claims and PUA claims separately, many states are also including some or all PUA claimants in their reported regular UI claims. As state agencies work to get these new programs up and running, there will likely continue to be some misreporting. Since the number of UI claims is one of the most up-to-date measures of labor market weakness and access to benefits, we will still be analyzing it regularly as reported by DOL, but we ask that you keep these caveats in mind when interpreting the data.

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Dani Rodrik: China as Economic Bogeyman [feedly]

China as Economic Bogeyman
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/west-should-stop-criticizing-china-industrial-policy-by-dani-rodrik-2020-07

Many Western economists presume that governments are not very good at identifying industries that merit support, and that domestic consumers and taxpayers incur the bulk of the costs. By the same logic, if Chinese policymakers effectively targeted activities where social benefits exceed private benefits, then it is not clear why foreigners should complain.

CAMBRIDGE – As COVID-19 spread from China to Europe and then the United States, pandemic-stricken countries found themselves in a mad scramble for medical supplies – masks, ventilators, protective garments. More often than not, it was to China that they had to turn.

By the time the crisis erupted, China had become the world's largest supplier of key products, accounting for half of all European and US imports of personal protective equipment. "China has laid the groundwork to dominate the market for protective and medical supplies for years to come," according to recent reporting by the New York Times.

When China first turned toward global markets, it had the advantage of virtually unlimited supplies of low-cost labor. But as everyone recognizes by now, China's manufacturing prowess is not the result of unfettered market forces.

As part of its Made in China 2025 policy, the Chinese government targeted ambitious increases in domestic producers' share of global medical supplies. The New York Times report explains in detail how the government provided cheap land to Chinese factories, extended subsidized loans, directed state companies to produce key materials, and stimulated domestic supply chains by requiring hospitals and firms to use local inputs.

For example, Sichuan, China's second-largest province, reduced by half the number of categories for which imports of medical equipment were allowed. Most hospitals were obliged to source everything locally, with only top hospitals allowed to bring in supplies from abroad.

Western media are now replete with accounts of China's "drive to dominate important cogs in the global industrial machine," in the words of the New York Times again. Increasingly, China's role in the world economy is portrayed in terms reminiscent not of "doux commerce" but of imperial aggression. Chinese President Xi Jinping's growing authoritarianism and the escalating trade conflicts with the US obviously play into this narrative as well.



The strategic and geopolitical tensions between the US and China are real. They are grounded in China's growing economic and military power and US leaders' reluctance to recognize the reality of a necessarily multipolar world. But we should not allow economics to become hostage to geopolitics or, worse, to reinforce and magnify the strategic rivalry.

For starters, we must recognize that a mixed, state-driven economic model has always been at the root of Chinese economic success. If one-half of China's economic miracle reflects its turn to markets after the late 1970s, the other half is the result of active government policies that protected old economic structures – such as state enterprises – while new industries were spawned through a wide array of industrial policies.

The Chinese people were the main beneficiaries, of course, experiencing the fastest poverty reduction in history. But these gains did not come at the expense of the rest of the world. Far from it. The growth policies that today arouse other countries' ire are the reason China has become such a large market for Western exporters and investors.

But aren't Chinese industrial policies, such as those deployed in medical supplies, unfair to competitors elsewhere?

We should exercise caution before reaching such a verdict. The standard justification for industrial policy is that new industries produce learning spillovers, technological externalities, and other broad social benefits that render state support desirable. But many Western economists presume that governments are not very good at identifying industries that merit support, and that domestic consumers and taxpayers incur the bulk of the costs. In other words, if Chinese industrial policy has been misguided and misdirected, it is China's own economy that has suffered as a result.

By the same logic, if Chinese policymakers effectively targeted activities where social benefits exceed private benefits, producing improved economic performance, then it is not clear why foreigners should complain. This is what economists call a case of "fixing market failures." It makes as much sense for outsiders to want to block the Chinese government from pursuing such policies as it does to prevent a competitor from freeing up its markets.

This is especially true when the externality in question is a global one, as in the case of climate change. Chinese subsidies for solar panels and wind turbines have produced a decline in the cost of renewable energy – an enormous benefit for the rest of the world.

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The economics of industrial policy can get more complicated in the presence of monopolies and market-dominant firms. Industrial policies can be justifiably restricted when they enable the exercise of market power at the expense of the rest of the world.

But Chinese producers are rarely accused of propping up prices, which is the hallmark of market power. More often, the complaint is the opposite. Such considerations probably apply more to the US and European firms that are frequently the dominant players in high-tech markets.

None of this is an argument for other countries to stand idly by while China progresses to ever more sophisticated industries. The US, for one, has a long history of successful industrial policy, particularly in defense-related technologies. There is now broad political agreement in the US political spectrum that the country needs a more explicit industrial policy targeting good jobs, innovation, and a green economy. A bill advanced by the US Senate's top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, proposes to spend $100 billion over the next five years on new technologies.

Much of the new push for industrial policy in the US and Europe is motivated by the perceived Chinese "threat." But economic considerations suggest this is the wrong focus. The needs and remedies lie in the domestic sphere. The objective should be to build more productive, more inclusive economies at home – not simply to outcompete China or try to undercut its economic progress.
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