(2020-08-05). Republicans sabotage as negotiations delay pandemic relief package. workers.org 
Aug. 3 — Talks between the Republican administration and its majority Republican Senate with the Democratic Party House and Senate leaders have failed so far to reach agreement. This impasse holds up the emergency relief, which Republicans call CARES-2, beyond the date when vital unemployment supplements expired and the rent . . . |
(2020-08-05). After a lifetime of discrimination older women slip into poverty. greenleft.org.au 
(2020-08-05). An Economic Survival Package, not a Stimulus Package. zcomm.org This is really a question of life and death. Tens of millions of workers have serious health conditions that mean they would be at considerable danger if they became infected…
(2020-08-05). House Speaker Pelosi signals readiness to cut unemployment benefits. wsws.org Congress continues to quibble over a new bill as the crisis deepens for millions of workers and their families.
(2020-08-04). Is Black Lives Matter a tipping point on class inequality? peoplesworld.org 
The Black Lives Matter movement, in demanding that we consider how Black lives have devalued, essentially asks us to interrogate our entire system of economic and cultural values. On what basis do we assign different values to people's lives? Such a question brings us to the heart of our class society that we really tend …
(2020-08-04). COVID Stimulus Checks Shouldn't Penalize One-Parent Households. counterpunch.org 
Both the HEROES Act passed by the House in May and Senate Republicans' HEALS Act announced this week would provide a new round of stimulus in the form of one-time cash payments to most Americans, but with some major differences. One of these differences is in how the bills treat one-parent households with children, the
(2020-08-04). Teachers protest Jordan government's closure of union and harsh crackdown. wsws.org As poverty and social unrest rise, the government has used the draconian emergency laws introduced in March to curtail democratic rights.
(2020-08-04). The 1 Percent's Attack on Unemployment Benefits is a Sign of Our Broken Democracy. counterpunch.org Members of the One Percent, such as former restaurateur Andrew Puzder, have urged Congress to not renew the $600 a week unemployment supplement Congress enacted as part of the CARES Act. They argue, in Puzder's words, that "this $600 per week bonus is discouraging work" for low-wage earners. No one receiving unemployment benefits will make themselves
(2020-08-04). Anger grows across the US as closed-door talks continue on expired unemployment relief. wsws.org Millions of American workers don't know how they'll pay rent or where their next meal will come from.
(2020-08-04). US: Florida's Ports Are Going Through a Difficult Situation. telesurenglish.net Florida's Port Council (FlaPort) warned that 169,000 jobs and US$23 billion will be lost because of the economic crisis unleashed by the pandemic. | RELATED: | These data, which come from a study carried out by the firm Martin Associates, were mentioned by the Council to request a stimulus package from the U.S. Congress. | The FlaPort Chairman and Executive Director Doug Wheeler argues that the U.S. ports need no less than $ 1.5 billion…
(2020-08-04). How to generate unemployment and deflation. indybay.org The theory put forward by fair-weather philosophers that the pandemic will be a salutary shock leading to a better, more sustainable world is wrong. Forced renunciation and economic decline do not make anything better. Less is not more, but less. Corona is not an opportunity, it is an evil. We can only hope that one day it will pass.
(2020-08-04). Racial And Ethnic Economic Inequality And The COVID-19 Pandemic. popularresistance.org The Democracy Collaborative prepared a report, created for the Healthcare Anchor Network, that looked at how racial and ethnic disparities in the economy are showing up in the COVID-19 pandemic and in the public policy response to the pandemic. The report also covers how the economic effects of the pandemic will likely impact racial and ethnic inequality. | Every passing day brings new, painful evidence of how the COVID-19 pandemic is disproportionately affecting people of color in the United States.
(2020-08-04). 'How The South Won The Civil War'. popularresistance.org If you think about the Civil War as a war between two different ideologies, two different concepts of what America is supposed to be, is it supposed to be a place where a few wealthy men direct the labor and the lives of the people below them, the women and people of color below them, the way the Confederacy argued? Is that America? Or is America what Lincoln and his ilk in the Republican Party in the North defined the democracy as during the Civil War? Is it a place where all men are equal before the law and should have equal access to resources? And of course, I use the word man there, but that's because that's…
(2020-08-04). Mass unemployment to worsen in Australia following Victorian lockdown. wsws.org Workers, especially those in casual and insecure employment, will bear the burden of the sweeping "state of disaster" COVID-19 restrictions announced by Victoria's Labor government.
(2020-08-03). Take on the Tech Mob Now or Perish. counterpunch.org Six months into a global pandemic, the US economy just took its most grievous hit on record, while Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook only added wealth. In just three months, April through June, so many workers were furloughed, laid off or forced to work and school from home, that the economy shriveled by 32.9% or
(2020-08-03). Poland's "Lublin Triangle" Will Create Lots of Trouble for Russia-Belarus Relations. globalresearch.ca Poland's ambitions to restore its long-lost Great Power status in Europe received a fresh impetus following the establishment of the so-called "Lublin Triangle" between itself, Lithuania, and Ukraine that de-facto aims to revive the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as the core of …
(2020-08-03). A fractured empire, within and without. mronline.org 
Two things seem certain at this point: (1) The Trump administration will continue to extend its heavy handed neofascist tactics in the next three months, seeking to expand its political base by these means, and (2) the White House and the Republican Party will try to engineer another set of stimulus payments/tax cuts in early …
(2020-08-03). The Unemployment Crisis Is a True National Emergency. zcomm.org The incompetent criminals ruling the U.S. are about to push millions of Americans off a terrifying financial cliff…
(2020-08-03). Comparing Poverty in India and America May Surprise You. commondreams.org A homeless man sleeps under an American Flag blanket on a park bench on September 10, 2013 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/gettyimages-1802162571_0.jpg …
(2020-08-03). Call for 'Emergency Charity Stimulus' as Billionaire Wealth Soars and US Nonprofits Sink. commondreams.org Mandating an increase of giving from charitable funds, says one advocate, "would move an estimated $200 billion off the sidelines and into front-line working charities without increasing taxes or adding to the deficit." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/food_coronavirus_nonprofits.jpg …
(2020-08-03). Groups Urge Federal Appeals Court to Affirm Wealth-Based Barriers to Voting are Unconstitutional. commondreams.org ______________________________…
(2020-08-03). Republican Senators Commit Political Suicide by Holding Up Stimulus in Election Year. commondreams.org Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) arrives at the Senate chamber as the Senate impeachment trial of U.S. President Donald Trump continues at the U.S. Capitol on January 30, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/susan_collins_fake_moderate.jpg …
(2020-08-02). 'Socialist Trump?' Trump says 'changes must be made soon' to tackle income disparity in rare dig at 1-percenters. rt.com 
US President Donald Trump said he agrees that the income gap between billionaires and the rest of Americans has grown too big, vowing to take action "soon" in a tweet that left his detractors puzzled. | "I actually agree with this. Too much income disparity. Changes must be made, and soon!" Trump wrote on Saturday, retweeting a Business Insider clip that cites a recent report by the Institute for Policy Studies, claiming that total US billionaire wealth grew by $637 between March and June, while 40 million Americans lost their jobs. | I actually agree with this. Too much income disparity. Changes must be made,…
(2020-08-02). The One Percent's Attack on Unemployment Benefits Shows How Broken Our Democracy Is. zcomm.org The dignity of work is restored when employment leads to working people securing living wages and having their voices heard…
(2020-08-01). Sri Lankan SEP to hold online meeting to conclude its election campaign. wsws.org The SEP is the only party fighting for an international socialist perspective against deepening social inequality, the danger of imperialist war and the threat of dictatorship.
(2020-08-01). US unemployment supplement expires, setting the stage for mass hunger and homelessness. wsws.org The congressional stalemate over an extension of the unemployment pay supplement, which is certain to result in the total elimination or a major cut in the benefit, is a declaration of war against the entire working population.
(2020-08-01). Stimulus Plan Negotiations Turn to Student Debt. indybay.org Student debt relief is now included in round the clock stimulus package negotiations on Capitol Hill.
(2020-08-01). "They're Playing With Us": Anger With GOP Growing as $600 Unemployment Benefit Lapses. commondreams.org "All our government wants is money in their pockets, while the people are poor and starving and scrounging." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/lines.jpg …
(2020-07-31). Health must come before the economy, insists top UN official for Latin America and the Caribbean. news.un.org In Latin America, where much of the region has dealt with years of sluggish growth, the economic crisis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic is pushing millions more into poverty, says Alicia Bárcena, the head of the UN regional body for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
(2020-07-31). Federal $600 a week addition to unemployment insurance runs out. fightbacknews.org San José, CA – 25 million Americans or more are losing their additional $600 a week in unemployment insurance benefits even as the number of people applying for unemployment benefits continues to rise. Up to one-third of all renters have already lost eviction protection from the federal government, and the Republican proposal does not include extending it. Millions of other households are under threat of losing their electrical power for not paying their bills. | The depth of the economic crisis stoked by the uncontrolled COVID-19 pandemic was shown this morning, July 30, in the Commerce Department's report on Gr…
(2020-07-31). Here's How We Remake The Economy. popularresistance.org To defend the $600 unemployment payments as both morally and economically necessary is not to suggest that the CARES Act is a sufficient solution to our economic problems. Nor, says Pavlina Tcherneva, Associate Professor of Economics at Bard College and a Research Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute and advisor to Bernie Sanders's 2016 presidential campaign, is the Democratic-led HEROES Act, which would extend the payments through January 2021 if Senate Republicans and the Trump administration would support it. Dr. Tcherneva studies the impact of unemployment on growth, income inequality and public health, an…