America's K-shaped recovery poses massive risk to Biden's chances of economic success
04 December 2020
President-elect Biden faces a fragile recovery that could easily fall apart, as the economy remains in worse shape than most people think.
Why it matters: There is a recovery happening. But it's helping some people immensely and others not at all. And it's that second part that poses a massive risk to the Biden-Harris administration's chance of success.
Two big reasons:
1. Big business, investors, and the wealthy are thriving. But restaurant and bar employees, hotel and airline staff, and other service workers are in a pretty hopeless situation right now:
- A "depression" is an apt description of what they're facing — especially folks in rural and middle America who are parents.
700,000 Americans have been filing unemployment insurance claims every week for 37 weeks — nine months. Plus, 20 million people are still on the pre-pandemic unemployment rolls.
- That's unheard of, and incredibly bad.
2. As Axios has been telling you, government statistics — because of the way they've always been reported — understate lots of red flags.
- The official unemployment rate has been dropping, but that's because:
- It never really counted gig economy workers well in the first place.
- Its data collection abilities have been severely crimped by the pandemic.
- Lots of people are falling out of the labor force — not working and not looking.
What's next: 13.4 million people are on pandemic unemployment programs that expire at the end of the year — 27 days from now.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.