Europe's social safety net is often considered the gold standard. Coronavirus has exposed its holes


By Emma Reynolds, CNN Business Sun December 6, 2020

London (CNN Business)Ros Davies is usually busiest at Christmas, building magnificent sets and stages for London's most sparkling parties and events.
This year, the fairytale is canceled. Davies, a self-employed carpenter hasn't worked since March because of the pandemic and has no idea when she may do so again.
She's living in temporary accommodation found for her in the city by St. Mungo's, a homelessness charity, while a plan to get her into permanent housing is on hold.
"I was hoping to move on and sort my life properly but ... here we are," the 50-year old told CNN Business. "I wouldn't have believed if you had said a year ago that your job's going to stop in March and that's it, you might never work doing that again."


Closed stores in Borough market in Gravesend, England, on Wednesday, December 2 as a national lockdown came to an end but the Kent region remained under stringent restrictions.
Davies did some retraining in painting and decorating, but with England just coming out of a second lockdown it hasn't led to any work. She has gone from regular jobs that paid enough for her to take vacations, to complete reliance on UK social security payments of just over £400 ($530) a month.
"I've really had to lower all of my expectations of life," she said. "If I knew that in a month I'd be working again, or even in spring ... but there doesn't seem to be anything to look forward to."
Coronavirus has revealed gaping holes in European social safety nets that are often seen as the gold standard. While many countries introduced support programs for workers affected by the pandemic, people are falling through the cracks. Most often, those who were already suffering the effects of inequality are hit the hardest — lower-income workers, those in insecure jobs, young people, women and minority ethnic groups.

A closed cafe terrace on Piazza Vittorio Veneto in downtown Turin, Italy, in November.

"Some of the social security systems in Europe are more extensive, better developed [than in the United States]," Michael Spence, a Nobel Laureate and former dean of Stanford Business School, told CNN Business.
He said that during the 2008 financial crisis, pre-existing programs involving governments and businesses helped many European countries avoid too many layoffs.
"But I think in the pandemic economy, the shock's so big that they kind of overwhelm the systems," he said. "The systems weren't built to withstand nearly overnight contractions of 25% in economies."
Unemployment was up by 2.18 million year on year in the European Union in October 2020, rising from a rate of 6.6% to 7.6%. The UK unemployment rate was an estimated 4.8% in the three months to September, up 0.9 percentage points year on year, and 782,000 jobs were lost between March and October, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Insecure work
Lockdowns have seen economies come to an abrupt halt, and benefits systems in many countries have not been able to cope, according to Mike Brewer, chief economist at the Resolution Foundation, a British think tank aimed at reducing inequality.
He said the UK welfare state was "inadequate" for this type of crisis, a downturn far beyond the "natural ebbing and flowing of economic activity" of typical recessions.

Women in the UK already earn less than men. The coronavirus is making that worse

The British welfare system was "not very generous" and relied on a fast-moving labor market, he said. "So it wasn't so much the scale of the pandemic, it was the fact that the pandemic just shut down the labor market ... that's destroyed the premise on which the UK welfare system has been designed."
Since self-employed and casual workers had few protections under pre-crisis systems, many governments have had to come up with emergency measures — but even these programs are inadequate.
The United Kingdom introduced an employee furlough scheme and a self-employment grant. But many workers who are partly or recently self-employed, freelance or on zero-hours or flexible contracts are ineligible for either.
The programs were "designed in a hurry," Brewer said; as the pandemic drags on, the gaps are becoming more evident, and more of a problem.
Hospitality, retail and leisure have been worst affected by lockdowns, sectors in which many informal jobs are held by young, low-income or migrant workers.
The disproportionate impact on these workers, coupled with a lack of government support, means the gap between rich and poor is only widening. Members of low-income households are more likely to be out of work and running down their savings, while those in higher-income households, who are more likely to be in secure jobs that can be done from home, grow wealthier as they spend less, said Brewer.

The people worst affected
Countries that are reliant on tourism, such as Portugal, Greece, Spain and Cyprus, have also faced a battering. The sector is often an entry point into work for women, young people, migrant workers and rural populations — and low-skilled, casual and temporary workers are likely to be the first to lose their jobs, according to a United Nations report.
Youth unemployment increased by 404,000 year on year in the European Union in October, according to Eurostat. The most complete recent data for all countries, from August, shows youth unemployment was highest in Spain, at 41.6%, up almost 9 percentage points. Greece hit 39.3%, Italy 31.4% and Portugal saw an 8.7 percentage point rise to 26.8%.
Brewer says it is "harmful to be out of work for long periods" and can have a long-term impact on future employment prospects so "young people now are going to be carrying that scar as they grow older."


Informal workers are falling through social safety nets, particularly in sectors such as tourism. Pictured, the Acropolis in Athens on November 12 during Greece's second lockdown.
Migrant workers across Europe disproportionately face precarious work and employment conditions, according to the European Federation of Public Service Unions. Joblessness can mean they lose their income, their right to stay in a country and even their homes without access to social benefits — so they are particularly likely to have to risk their health by continuing work. Undocumented migrants do not qualify for any protections.
Abigail Adams-Prassl, an associate professor in economics at the University of Oxford, told CNN Business that women and Black, Asian and other minority ethnic workers were also more likely to slip through the cracks.
"Insecure work and work in vulnerable sectors such as social care is disproportionately done by non-White groups in Britain," she said, adding that there was good evidence that "people who identify as non-White face a bigger economic shock than those identified as White."
This is coupled with the fact that they are more likely to become seriously ill or die from Covid-19.
Adams-Prassl said the ability to work from home also depends on domestic duties.

These families cherished multi-generational living. But Covid-19 has wrecked it

Childcare falls disproportionately on women, and the virus has often meant that children cannot attend school or childcare, says Adams-Prassl. She said the pandemic has exacerbated the financial shortfall for many UK childcare providers and there had been "nothing in terms of a targeted package of support for that sector or thinking about how to really support the employment of caregivers."
Women's groups have repeatedly raised the issue that social security systems can be problematic for those in abusive relationships, she added. "If you've got a partner who didn't lose their job, or who might have savings of their own, that can mean that you're ineligible for these forms of government support," said Adams-Prassl, adding that these patterns were also seen in France and Italy.
"All of these things existed beforehand," she said. "It's the fact that I guess it has affected many more people over the pandemic and it's just been so stark has made many, many more people aware of these issues. I think there's still a very long way to go in terms of thinking about what the policy response is."

Increasing existing inequalities
In Italy, this inequality can be seen in stark relief along geographical lines. While the richer north of the country was initially hit the hardest by the pandemic, the financial damage has been worst for the poorest households, which are more widespread in the south, according to the Bank of Italy.
Employment has dropped more in the south, where people are more likely to be in temporary jobs or roles that are more exposed to the effects of the pandemic, the November report found.
The government launched loans, subsidies and wage supplementation programs in March, but Valentina Meliciani, director of the Luiss School of European Political Economy in Rome, says high levels of public debt gave the country "a limited capability to respond to the crisis" and reach everyone.

Borrowing is dirt cheap. These countries are cashing in

"Government interventions worked in the formal sector but less so with informal sector workers," she said, citing the examples of the tourism sector and migrant workers. "The problem is that it is very difficult to catch these people because they do not show up at all in the statistics."
She said Italy was already a "quite divided country" with the North and the center on one side, and the Mezzogiorno (south) on the other.
The southern region is fast becoming poorer. Public policies are less effective, students are lagging behind in education and fewer homes have fast broadband.
Meliciani said the southern regions "will suffer the most" in the long term. She said that to stop poverty increasing after the pandemic, government policies must address structural problems in the south, including the digital divide.
She said companies in the south needed incentives or tax relief to allow them to invest in digital technologies or other areas that could help them survive the crisis.
Modeling led by Oxford University in July found that two months of lockdown plus six months of restrictions would result in a mean wage loss rate for the poor of up to 16.2%. Cyprus was the European country where inequality increased most under several different pandemic scenarios, with a loss rate of up to 22.4% for the poor.
"There is considerable inequality in Cyprus in terms of income, wealth, employment, opportunities, and what I would call intergenerational gaps," Leslie Manison, a former senior economist at the International Monetary Fund and ex-advisor in the Cyprus Ministry of Finance, told CNN Business.
He said the government had introduced measures such as subsidizing salaries of employees in companies that had suspended their operations, and people in the informal sector often weren't eligible despite being worse affected by Covid.
"The subsidies haven't been connected, you could say, with active labor policies on retraining and so on, compared with a country like Germany," he added.

Activists are fighting for a renewable future in Sub-Saharan Africa. Chinese coal projects threaten to dirty those plans

IMPERIALISM 

THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM

By Eoin McSweeney, CNN Business Wed December 9, 2020

(CNN Business)When the Ghanaian government agreed to coordinate with Shenzen Energy Group, a Chinese energy company, to build a 7,000-megawatt coal power plant in the country's Ekumfi district, Chibeze Ezekiel was concerned.

He knew the proposed plant's wastewater, ash pit and mercury emissions posed serious health and environmental risks to the local fishing and farming communities. Access to clean drinking water was under threat from the plant's sulfur dioxide emissions and associated acid rain, and there would have been a clear impact on the regional climate.

Ezekiel, who is from the capital, Accra, was already the founder of an NGO focused on good environmental governance and started what became a successful grassroots youth movement to stop the construction of the $1.5 billion plant, which included a shipping port to bring in coal.

He ran a social media campaign emphasizing the threats of the proposed plans to the environment and local communities, detailing the possible long-term job creation that might come with a shift to renewable energy.




As a direct result of Goldman Environmental Prize winner Chibeze Ezekiel's grassroots campaign, the Ghanaian Minister of Environment canceled the construction of a 700-megawatt (MW) coal power plant and adjoining shipping port.

The Ghanaian government canceled the project in 2016. The president, Nana Akufo-Addo, has since said new power policies will be based on renewable generation technologies such as wind and solar, as Ghana attempts to meet its carbon reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement.

"If the world is trying to move away from environmental destruction because of the fossil fuel, then Africa shouldn't be seen as perpetuating that era," said Ezekiel over a webcall.

He was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for Africa on November 30, which honors the achievements and leadership of grassroots environmental activists.

Ezekiel's victory is but one of many battles raging across the continent between activists, Chinese companies and African governments.

Despite the reputational risk, Chinese companies have continued to finance the construction of coal plants, drawing ire from environmental activists, while African leaders are choosing quick fix solutions to electrify their countries.

China's dirty belt and road

In July, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged nations to stop financing the coal industry.

"Coal has no place in Covid-19 recovery plans," he said via video link during an online summit hosted by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

In September, Chinese President Xi Jinping promised that the world's biggest polluter of greenhouse gases would go carbon neutral by 2060. Speaking via video link to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, he called for a "green revolution;" this was the first time China had issued concrete goals to reach net zero carbon emissions.

In 2018, Xi outlined a major push for green development in Africa as part of his global infrastructure policy, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Thirty-eight Sub-Saharan countries have signed on, hoping for improved infrastructure and energy development.

But despite these promises to phase out dirty, high-carbon projects at home and abroad, Chinese banks and companies are still financing seven coal plants in Africa like the one planned for the Ekumfi district, with 13 more in the pipeline, mostly south of the Sahara.
It was the China-Africa Development fund that was supposed to finance the coal power plant in Ghana, a private equity fund entirely backed by China Development Bank, a state government policy bank.

Since 2000 the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China alone have supplied $6.5 billion of finance for coal projects in Africa, according to the Boston University Global Development Policy Center. China has a rapidly developing economy with many sectors dependent on fossil fuels and it currently contributes 26% of global carbon emissions, according to the Green Belt and Road Initiative Center (Green-BRI).

In October, one month after Xi promised carbon neutrality, one of China's biggest energy construction firms, state-owned PowerChina, flew 223 Chinese employees into Zimbabwe to "accelerate" the expansion of the coal-fired Hwange Power Plant in the west of Zimbabwe. Two weeks later, the Chinese Ambassador to the country, Guo Shaochun, said in a tweet that the coronavirus pandemic "cannot stop the pace of cooperation between China and Zimbabwe" and that on completion of the project, the country's "power self-sufficiency capacity will be greatly improved."

African governments have been happy to push ahead with dirty energy projects that only the Chinese will finance. The potential of a competent energy infrastructure fueled by cheap coal is enticing for a country like Zimbabwe, given the energy deficits slowing economic growth. The country has a national power demand ranging from 2,200-2,400 megawatts but only provides about 1,300, according to the Centre for Natural Resources Governance (CNRG).

Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) shakes hands with his Zimbabwean counterpart President, Emmerson Mnangagwa on September 5, 2018, a day after the conclusion of the Forum On China-Africa Cooperation.

Energy shortages and power cuts are commonplace in Ghana, exacerbated by drought conditions because of the country's dependency on hydro-electricity. Its energy crisis left it vulnerable to energy developers and foreign investment before Ezekiel intervened.
Like other countries investing in Africa, China also promises jobs, while taking advantage of lax policies and cheaper construction costs. Many governments choose to meet the demand for energy at the cost of a clean environment.

This is despite every African country having ratified the Paris Agreement, apart from Angola, Libya, South Sudan and Eritrea.

"Policy on renewable projects is weak or non-existent in Africa," said Han Chen, the manager of international energy policy at the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council, a non-profit international environmental advocacy group. "In China, environmental standards are pretty high, while South Africa or Kenya, for example, have energy policies that make it easier for investors to get involved."

If current plans go ahead, the Chinese-backed coal power output in Africa currently being financed could treble by the time the country realizes its goal of carbon neutrality in 2060, according to Global Energy Monitor.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not reply to a request for comment.

Activism across the continent

Ezekiel is not alone in fighting for an Africa focused on renewable energy.

The Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA) has served letters to RioZim, formerly owned by London-listed mining corporation RioTinto (RIO), over plans for a 2,800-megawatt plant in the northern Gokwe region, west of the capital Harare.

It will receive financial assistance from the construction company China Gezhouba Group Corporation (CGGC), and country risk insurance costs are likely to be covered by the China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation (Sinosure) and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), according to Global Energy Monitor.

ZELA says the project is shrouded in secrecy and RioZim has not provided information on the environmental or socio-economic impacts of the plant.

It is likely the land earmarked for the plant is under communal settlements, meaning there would be relocations and appropriation of land, say ZELA. Living near coal plants can cause respiratory issues, affect water quality and increase the alkalinity of soil, according to Thermal Watch.

How a deadly mudslide inspired a teenager to protect his environment

When contacted for comment, RioZim replied that "any media engagements are strictly prohibited" under the provision of their "non-disclosure agreements."

South Africa's $10 billion, 3,000-megawatt Musina-Makhado power station will be financed by Chinese companies, both state-owned and private, with PowerChina alone contributing $4.5 billion, according to a memorandum of agreement signed in July 2018.

It is part of the proposed Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in the Limpopo province north of Pretoria, a mega industrial hub which will span more than 6,000 hectares.
A pre-feasibility study conducted by UK engineering consultancy Mott MacDonald said direct impacts of the site where the coal plant will be located include "detrimental effect on the biodiversity assets of the region," "disruption of ecological functioning and pollution of water resources" and "large-scale land transformation." There will be a "definite" release of "significant" greenhouse emissions, according to a preliminary impact assessment.

"The country can't afford to be locking in to a hugely polluting, expensive and carbon-intensive mega project at a time when — more than ever — we need to act against the climate crisis, protect the resilience of vulnerable, water scarce areas and preserve our limited state funds and resources for projects with positive outcomes and benefits for all," said Michelle Koyama, an attorney at Cape Town's non-profit Centre for Environmental Rights (CER).

CER has objected to the Musina-Makhado SEZ because of these negative climate impacts and say it will take water away from areas already experiencing deficits. South Africa has been plagued by droughts and water scarcity, and is extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

The Limpopo Provincial Government, PowerChina and the Chinese embassy in South Africa did not respond to requests for comment.

East of Pretoria, Kusile Power Station is being constructed with $2.5 billion from China Development Bank and sponsorship from Eskom, South Africa's biggest polluter.

Many people have moved in from rural areas and neighboring Zimbabwe to find work at the Medupi coal power plant, pictured here from Maropong township outside Lephalele, South Africa in January 2015.

The South African environment department launched a criminal investigation against the electric public utility company in May 2019 over air quality concerns at its Kendal Power Station.

Eskom confirmed to CNN that it has been summoned to appear in front of a regional court to answer to criminal charges related to the Kendal plant. These include exceeding the emissions limit on air pollutants and supplying false or misleading information to an air quality officer.

Fossil fuel advocates argue that the energy provided by the plants is vital for development, but centralized coal has failed to deliver electricity to over 2.5 million households in South Africa and can be costly, according to Greenpeace.

"Despite the government promising to provide the people of South Africa with affordable electricity, many of them cannot afford Eskom's coal-powered electricity -- the costs of which continue to escalate," said Koyama. "Ironically the same communities who live next door to these coal plants, and have to suffer their impacts daily, do not have reliable, affordable electricity in their homes."

A 2017 report written by Mike Holland, a member of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economist, estimated that more than 2,200 deaths a year could be attributed to coal-fired generation in South Africa. Lung cancer, heart disease stroke and respiratory infections were common killers.

Shooting of Zimbabwe workers by Chinese mine owner shows 'systemic' abuse, watchdog says

No coal plant brings health benefits and Chinese companies are not alone in receiving criticism for financing their construction.

In 2014 Safi Energy Company secured $900 million from the Bank of Japan to build a coal plant in the west of Morocco. Described as a double standard and a danger to public health by Greenpeace, the environmental NGO estimated the plant is the cause of 59 premature deaths in the North African country annually, a figure that would be more than four times lower if Japanese emission limits were applied.

Between 2014 and 2017 European and US banks like HSBC (FTRXX), JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Deutsche Bank (DB) loaned $921 million to the potentially criminal Eskom, according to data compiled by a number of non-profit and environmental organizations.

"Coal investments come with a lot of human rights violations," Nqobizitha Ndlovu, a constitutional and human rights lawyer who is the legal adviser to ZELA, told CNN in a phone conversation. "There are a lot of complaints here in Zimbabwe, and across all of Africa, that these projects do not respect the right to be healthy, to have a safe and clean environment or the right to water."

When asked whether they would reevaluate their relationship with Eskom in light of the criminal charges, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and JPMorgan Chase declined to comment.
However while western companies have pulled back from investment in coal plants, Chinese plans are still forging ahead.

"You're locking a lot of countries into a coal-dependent pathway and the pollution can be horrendous," said Chen.

A green future

After seeing his 2016 campaign empower communities, Ezekiel is hopeful. He spent four days speaking with chiefs, elders, fishermen and other local groups in Ekumfi, explaining the positives of renewable energy, especially the possibilities for long-term employment.

"We agree that there are people who are unemployed and that jobs are critical," said Ezekiel. "But we believe that there's a better alternative in the area of renewable energy which guarantees employment not only for the short term, but for a long time."

Chen agrees, saying there was "pushback" from communities. "There's sometimes a disconnect between a national bilateral agreement and what those on the ground actually want," he said.

Ezekiel launched the Children for Climate Action (C4C) initiative to involve children (as well as young people) in the fight against climate change and the no coal debate. As a national coordinator of 350 Ghana Reducing our Carbon (350 G-ROC), Ezekiel is also encouraging other African countries (particularly Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria) to resist foreign investment in coal.

"A huge mobilization of young people is needed to create more public awareness and education, but we must provide skills and facilities for the youth to be employed, so we can demonstrate that energy indeed provides more job opportunities," Ezekiel said.

Campaigners draw public attention to Chibeze Ezekiel's movement on the dangers of coal and the need for renewables at a shopping mall in Accra, Ghana in September 2017.

The pan-African activism has had some success and in recent years coal projects have been shelved in Nigeria, Mozambique and Botswana, among others.

In recent months, Cyril Ramaphosa, the president of South Africa and chairman of the African Union, has dramatically shifted his country's energy stance toward renewables. About 11,800-megawatts will be added to South Africa's energy capacity by 2022, with "more than half" coming from renewable sources, he said in an address on October 15, adding that steps like these can help achieve a "sufficient, secure and reliable energy supply."

CER has successfully stopped the construction of a proposed 557-megawatt plant at Thabametsi alongside environmental organizations Earthlife and Groundwork. It is challenging the environmental authorization for another at Khanyisa, where a water-use licence has already been rescinded.

On the intercontinental stage, Ezekiel is encouraged by the election of Joe Biden as the next president of the United States.

"I would say it is a victory not only for the US, but for the world as a whole," he said. "He has made comments to the effect that he is prepared to put America back into the Paris agreement. That's a very big plus."

The US election is a vote on climate change for the whole world

China has actually become the largest green finance market, with about 11 trillion yuan ($1.7 trillion) in green credit and about 1 trillion yuan ($150 billion) in green bonds, according to Green-BRI. Growing this market has helped control the pollution and ecological damage resulting from 40 years of extreme economic growth.

Ultimately coal is a fading industry and China is almost alone in financing coal power in Africa. As banks in other countries continue to snub the fuel, it's likely that Chinese money will build the last ever coal plant.

If the economic behemoth wants to take its commitment to fighting global warming seriously, it needs to stop financing coal plants overseas. For Ezekiel and other activists, the war is turning in their favor.

USA

The Covid Divide: The pandemic has plunged some into poverty, and boosted savings for others

By Jeanne Sahadi, CNN Business

Updated Thu December 10, 2020

For many Americans, the economic effects of the pandemic have been devastating. Millions have lost jobs. Food and housing insecurity has soared. And roughly half of US households reported a drop in income this year, according to Bankrate.com.
Life will get worse for them if they don't get more financial help or paying work soon.
But others -- lucky enough to keep their jobs and even work from home -- have ended up financially better off, or at least unaffected, thanks to such factors as a rising stock market, increased savings, or a boost in demand for their business.

He never imagined he'd be in this situation


Unfortunately, Barnell Garrett finds himself in the "worse off" category.
In March, his job as a hotel sales manager in Seattle disappeared -- first through a furlough, then a permanent layoff.

Garrett's unemployment benefits expire at the end of December, and he doesn't know if he'll qualify for an extension. His health insurance costs are now $641 a month, well above the $150 he was paying when his employer subsidized his premiums. He's considering withdrawing about $25,000 from his 401(k) to pay off the extra credit card debt he accrued during the pandemic to pay for groceries and insurance, as well as a private loan he took out a few years ago.

Laid off from his hotel sales job, Barnell Garrett says he can only pay his bills through January.
He says he can pay his bills through January, but if he doesn't get help soon, he will have to move in with his mother if he can't find a much cheaper place to live. Now approaching 40, he never imagined he'd be in this situation.

Garrett said he doesn't expect the hotel industry, where he's built his career, to bounce back quickly so he's looking at other industries for a job. He's willing to take a pay cut, but is shocked at how low the pay on offer is -- even when an employer requires a college degree and years of experience.

"Several of the jobs I interviewed for initially looked like good-paying jobs, but during the interview I learned that they pay barely above Seattle's $15 minimum wage and are lower than my monthly unemployment," Garrett said.

Her 401(k) is already tapped out

Olivia Bukosky said last year she was a working mom living a middle class life in Owings Mills, Maryland.

This year, she lost her job in property management, drained her 401(k) and has been collecting unemployment benefits and food stamps.

She's behind on rent and worries she'll be evicted in January if her landlord can't secure rental subsidies from the state.


Olivia Bukosky went from middle class working mom last year to living off food stamps and unemployment benefits this year.

If that happens, Bukosky said, she'll either have to stay with friends or move back to the home she still co-owns with her husband, whom she is divorcing. "But it's not a good environment."

She wishes the divorce could proceed, but that will have to wait. "I cannot collect alimony until we go to court. I can't afford a lawyer and Legal Aid will not even look at divorces until the pandemic is over," she said.

'Tired of being sad.' The financial stress from Covid is taking an emotional toll
Like Garrett, Bukosky is also looking for work outside her chosen field. She's been applying for jobs and even getting interviews, but so far no offers. "I'm looking for everything. I just need to work."

She has friends to lend emotional support, but she's hesitant to open up. "A friend reached out today and I didn't want to tell him how I was doing because I didn't have anything good to say. I'm like a broken record," Bukoski said. "It's just been a terrible year."

Humbled by how lucky they've been

The economic story has been very different for folks like real estate lawyer Paul Levine, veterinarian Danielle Sawyer, and adventure travelers Michael and Melissa Harlow.

Levine, who works on both residential and commercial real estate deals, initially saw a huge drop off in business from mid-March through mid-May. But ever since, he said, his practice has been "staggeringly busy... There's a lot of money pouring into the market."

While he doesn't know yet whether his total revenue this year will top last year's, he expects it may. And even if it didn't, he still considers himself better off financially because the money that he's saved from not traveling or going out to eat has gone toward his savings and paying bills.

"I feel humble and thankful that I can pay my mortgage and pay for my household expenses," Levine said.


A surge of pet adoptions during the pandemic has meant a lot more business for veterinarians like Danielle Sawyer.

Sawyer's veterinary practice has seen a 50% uptick in clients because so many people have gotten dogs during the pandemic. It's also because many have done so via Craigslist or through unscrupulous breeders online and they end up with pets who are sick and need medical care. "It's been like one long day for us," Sawyer said.

But it's also meant she's had the best year financially since becoming a vet. And that has helped her pay down her school debt and buy the condo she and her toddler daughter now live in.

For empty nesters Michael and Melissa Harlow, the pandemic affirmed the wisdom of their decision years ago to pay off debt and downsize their belongings so they could quit their corporate jobs. While they still need to work so they don't have to touch their retirement savings, they do so in ways tied to their love of adventure.

Michael and Melissa Harlow's RV rental business did well this summer as people sought Covid-safe ways to travel.

For instance, they run an online rental RV service. Business this summer was very good as people sought to find Covid-safe ways to travel, they said. Melissa also works as a freelance voice over artist, which she does from a studio she created in the guest house they rent on a ranch near San Diego.

Also, they noted, their savings have increased because they are spending less on travel and other activities this year.

"I'm grateful we bit the bullet for so many years (downsizing). It was worth the pain ... to be where we are now," Melissa said.

Financially steady, but not unaffected

For some people, the pandemic has meant neither boon nor bust.

Originally from the Netherlands, Jan Jansen, a retired physician, and his wife, Catharine, moved to Santa Fe a few years ago, after decades of living and working in Indianapolis.

Their income has remained steady -- thanks in part to a rising stock market. And they've ended up spending less because they aren't able to go to restaurants or travel. Instead, they're donating to food banks and giving money through their church.

"It's sad to see how a country can completely fail its population,"Jansen said.

Retiree Jan Jansen, with his wife Catharine, misses traveling to see family but feels fortunate the pandemic hasn't hurt their income.

The main thing they've lost, Jansen said, is a year of their lives. "Our main problem is a lost year, which counts more when your horizon becomes shorter."

Meanwhile, federal government employee Leigh Ramunni in Massachusetts said she has lost family members to Covid-19. But she is grateful she didn't lose her job and can work from home, since her husband is no longer working due to a disability.

Ramunni noted that she has stocked up on food for six months because she has asthma and tries not to go out much. But she is also donating more -- both in terms of money and food.
"We're lucky to have more, so we have given more," she said. "We count ourselves blessed, but also pray for something positive to emerge... As a rich and powerful nation, we should not have food lines and evictions during a pandemic."

Hanukkah Is About Resistance. Let’s Resist This COVID Spike Through Mutual Aid.

Volunteers from a nonprofit organization provide food supplies to people who line up ahead of Thanksgiving amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City on November 20, 2020.TAYFUN COSKUN / ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES

BY Brant Rosen, Truthout December 10, 2020

With Hanukkah now upon us, the internet is abuzz with articles offering guidance on how to celebrate the holiday in the age of COVID-19. While most of them focus on practical issues such as socially distanced Hanukkah parties and Zoom candle lightings, I’ve been thinking a great deal on what the story of Hanukkah might have to offer to all of us as we gear up for a winter like none we’ve ever experienced in our lifetimes.

Hanukkah, of course, is based upon the story of the Maccabees, the small group of Jews who successfully liberated themselves from the oppressive reign of the Seleucid Empire in 167 BCE. The legacy of this story, however, is a complex one because the Jewish struggle against religious persecution took place within the context of a bloody and destructive Jewish civil war. In contemporary times, the meaning of Hanukkah has become even more complicated given its proximity to Christmas, subjecting it to the uniquely American religion of unmitigated commercialism.

Beyond all these complications, I’d argue that the essence of Hanukkah is the theme of resistance. At its core, the Hanukkah story commemorates the victorious resistance of the people over the power and might of empire. On a deeper level, we might say that the festival celebrates the spiritual strength of our resistance to an often harsh and unyielding world.

In this regard, it is significant that Hanukkah takes place in the winter. Apropos of the season, the festival prescribes resistance to an increasingly colder and darker world by lighting increasing numbers of candles during this eight-night festival. Those of us who celebrate this holiday are instructed to place our menorahs in our windows as an act of “spiritual defiance,” directing the light outward into the night where it may clearly be seen by the outside world.

There have indeed been moments in Jewish history in which lighting the menorah was literally an act of resistance. One powerful example can be seen offered in a single image: the famous photograph taken in 1932 Germany showing a menorah on the window sill of a Jewish home, with a Nazi flag clearly visible across the street. Another well-known moment of Hanukkah resistance occurred in 1993 when, after a brick was thrown through the window of a Jewish home in Billings, Montana, scores of citizens showed their solidarity with the Jewish community by taping paper menorahs in their windows. More recently, on the Hanukkah after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, one local Jewish leader commented that the menorah is “not just something that we display in our homes for ourselves … but something we light so that passersby can see. For us, this year that feels like an act of resistance.”

In 2020, we find Hanukkah arriving amid a winter that medical experts are calling “the darkest days of the pandemic” and “COVID hell.” In a recent interview, Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said, “the next three to four months are going to be, by far, the darkest of the pandemic.” Another expert has predicted that more lives will be lost in December than the U.S. saw in March and April combined.

With such an unprecedented and terrifying winter bearing down upon us, I’d suggest that the ideal of Hanukkah resistance is more powerfully relevant than ever. This resistance, of course, presents us with profound challenges. After living with the pandemic for the better part of a year, so many throughout the U.S. are succumbing to “COVID fatigue” — following months of social isolation and anxiety, increasing numbers of people are becoming less vigilant about the pandemic practice of masking and social distancing, even as infection rates spike precipitously.

With the darkest days of the pandemic ahead of us — even as we agitate for rent cancellation, eviction resistance and universal health care — we have another form of resistance at our disposal: We can resist government inaction/abandonment of its citizens by participating in the grassroots, self-organized networks of support known as mutual aid.

While these community-based efforts are not new, they have proliferated widely since the onset of the pandemic. As Jia Tolentino pointed out in a New Yorker article last May:

[Mutual aid] is not a new term, or a new idea, but it has generally existed outside the mainstream. Informal child-care collectives, transgender support groups, and other ad-hoc organizations operate without the top-down leadership or philanthropic funding that most charities depend on. Since COVID, however, mutual aid initiatives seemed to be everywhere.

The concept of mutual aid was coined in 1902 by the Russian anarchist/scientist/economist/philosopher, Peter Kropotkin, who argued that mutual aid could be traced to the “earliest beginnings of evolution.” Kropotkin posited that solidary provided the human species with the best chance of survival, particularly given the emergence of private property and the rise of the State:

It is not love and not even sympathy upon which Society is based in mankind. It is the conscience — be it only at the stage of an instinct — of human solidarity. It is the unconscious recognition of the force that is borrowed by each man from the practice of mutual aid; of the close dependence of every one’s happiness upon the happiness of all; and of the sense of justice, or equity which brings the individual to consider the rights of every other individual as equal to his own. Upon this broad and necessary foundation, the still higher moral feelings are developed.

Some of the most well-known examples of mutual aid in U.S. history, in fact, were the survival programs created by the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the community-based initiatives organized by the Puerto Rican Young Lords Party in the 1960s and ’70s. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover himself grasped the radical power of these mutual aid projects. In a now infamous internal memo, he wrote that the Black Panther breakfast programs represented “the best and most influential activity going for the BPP, and is as such, the greatest threat to efforts by authorities.”The true miracle of resistance occurs when we show up for one another.

Another important aspect of mutual aid is the understanding that disenfranchised people cannot ultimately depend on state institutions to save them. According to Puerto Rican scholar Isa Rodríguez, “‘Solo el pueblo salva al pueblo’ — ‘Only the people save the people,’ became a rallying cry for Puerto Ricans following the devastation of Hurricane Maria in 2017 as multiple organizations — mostly based on grassroots groups that existed prior to the hurricane — quickly organized to channel aid.”

The community-based solidarity of mutual aid is also fundamentally different from the approach of private humanitarian charities in which the needy are “saved” through the beneficence of those of greater means. And it must not be viewed through the lens of “crisis response.” Mutual aid, rather, is rooted in long-term alliances between people engaged in a common struggle. As historian/writer, Elizabeth Catte has observed:


Mutual aid can be a form of resistance, but the practice itself requires discipline. We can’t do it because it helps us sugarcoat our trauma, or because it lets us say we have claimed goodness in a world where it is often lacking. Mutual aid is incompatible with charity and should offer no pleasure to the well-resourced person or do-gooder who hopes to find worthy recipients of their kindness, because the practice of mutual aid is intended to destroy categories of worth.

Since mutual aid is rooted in the ideal of solidarity, the first step for anyone interested is to cultivate genuine and accountable relationships within their own local communities. This will be undeniably challenging in a time of pandemic, when our mutual safety literally depends upon socially distancing from one another.

Mutual aid projects, however, are adapting to meet these challenges through creative use of commercial internet platforms, online databases and toolkits. Additionally, mutual aid projects in the age of COVID insist on strict adherence to public health protocols.

In the words of anarchist organizer Cindy Milstein: “While ‘social’ aka ‘physical’ distancing, hand washing, and mask wearing are necessary tools to help stop the spread of this virus, they will only be effective if it’s grounded in an ethics and practice of social solidarity and collective care.”

The most famous Hanukkah story says that when the Maccabees entered the Temple to relight the menorah, they only found enough oil to last for one day. Miraculously, however, the menorah burned for eight days. At the core of this seemingly simple parable are profound lessons about the power of sustainability and resilience. We know from history that popular movements of resistance have the ability to succeed even against the most daunting of foes.

The prospect of the coming winter — and the new year ahead — are undeniably daunting. Amid it all lie fundamental questions: Where will we find the strength to meet these challenges? How will we keep the fire of our commitment to each other from burning out? Who can we depend upon to see us through the coming season and beyond?

The resistance embodied by mutual aid provides us with a compelling answer — in the end, we have each other. As Dean Spade, who recently published a book titled Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis (and the Next), so aptly puts it, “what happens when people get together to support one another is that people realize that there’s more of us than there is of them.”

True resistance can never occur as long as we expect an external human force to somehow show up to save us. In the end, the true miracle of resistance occurs when we show up for one another.

5 facts about the QAnon conspiracy theories

More than a dozen 2020 U.S. House and Senate candidates have engaged with the collection of conspiracy theories known as QAnon. At least two of those candidates won their races and will be heading to Congress in 2021.

Here are five facts about how much Americans have heard about the QAnon conspiracy theories and their views about them, based on Pew Research Center surveys and analysis.

How we did this

Americans’ awareness of the conspiracy theories called QAnon increased dramatically from early to late 2020. In a Feb. 18-March 2 survey, about a quarter (23%) of U.S. adults said they had heard “a lot” or “a little” about QAnon. By September, that number had increased to 47%. At the same time, though, very few Americans have heard a lot about it: 9% as of September, up from 3% in February.

Knowledge of QAnon grew on both sides of the political aisle, though Democrats’ awareness continues to outpace that of Republicans. As of September, more than half (55%) of Democrats and those who lean Democratic say they have heard at least a little about the conspiracy theories, compared with 39% of Republicans.

The same U.S. adults were sampled for the March survey and September survey. This raises the possibility that some of the increase in QAnon awareness is attributable to re-asking the same people.

Americans with high political knowledge are more likely than others to have heard of the conspiracy theories. Within both parties, political knowledge correlates closely with awareness of these theories.

Among Democrats, those with high political knowledge are more than three times as likely to say they have heard about QAnon (85%) as those with low political knowledge (25%). And though fewer Republicans overall have heard of QAnon, those with high political knowledge are more than twice as likely (59%) as those with low political knowledge (24%) to have heard at least a little about QAnon. (You can find more details of the political knowledge index here.)

High or low political knowledge is a stronger factor in awareness of the conspiracy theories than differences in ideology within each party. The differences seen between Democrats with high and low knowledge are much larger than the differences seen between liberal Democrats and conservative or moderate Democrats, and the same is true among Republicans. 

The majority of Americans who have heard of QAnon think it’s a bad thing for the country. Among those who have heard of the conspiracy theories, 57% say QAnon is a “very bad” thing for the country. Another 17% say it is “somewhat bad.” That compares with 20% who say it is a somewhat or very good thing, while 6% did not answer.

Democrats who have heard of QAnon are more likely than their Republican counterparts to say it’s bad for the country. Almost eight-in-ten Democrats who have heard of QAnon (77%) say it is a “very bad” thing for the country, and another 13% say it is a somewhat bad thing. On the other hand, only about a quarter of Republicans who have heard of QAnon (26%) feel it is very bad for the country, while 24% say it is somewhat bad. Indeed, roughly four-in-ten Republicans who have heard of QAnon (41%) say it is a good thing for the country (32% somewhat good and 9% very good).

When asked to describe QAnon, people most often mentioned that it was a group of some kind (41%) or a conspiracy group or theory (44%). When Americans who said they had heard at least a little about QAnon were asked to write in their own words what they thought it was, they were most likely to describe it as a group of some kind or include a more specific description of it as a conspiracy group or theory.

Far fewer wrote in other kinds of descriptions. Two-in-ten mentioned that it is a right-wing group or theory (20%) or that it is a theory about child abuse or trafficking (20%). Another 16% connected it directly to President Donald Trump, either by saying that Trump supports the group or that the group views him as a hero, savior or victim. (Responses could fit into more than one of these categories.)

A separate content study of YouTube by the Center found that in December 2019, mentions of “QAnon” were concentrated in a very small number of the most viewed news channels. Overall, 5% of videos published by the 100 most viewed YouTube news channels at the time of the study included the word “QAnon.” The vast majority of those mentions came from just a handful of YouTube news channels: 11 of these channels studied produced 80% of the videos mentioning QAnon.

In a subsequent content analysis conducted in September 2020, eight of these 11 YouTube news channels were still producing videos that mentioned QAnon. What’s more, four of them mentioned QAnon in half or more of the videos they published that month.

Some of these channels clearly advertised their orientation around these conspiracy theories, including one that put the word “QAnon” in the thumbnail of all of its videos. Other channels were more subtle in their mentions, using euphemisms such as “our favorite anon.”

Several of the 11 channels were terminated by YouTube in October, including some channels that mentioned QAnon the most in September 2020.

Note: Here is the methodology for th

So far, Trump has granted clemency less frequently than any president in modern history

BY JOHN GRAMLICH AND KRISTEN BIALIK PEW RESEARCH

  

President Donald Trump signs a pardon for Alice Johnson, who was serving a life sentence on drug-related charges, on Aug. 28, 2020, in Washington. (Evan Vucci/AP)

As he enters the home stretch of his White House tenure, Donald Trump has used his clemency power less often than any president in modern history, according to data from the U.S. Department of Justice. Trump’s sparse use of pardons, commutations and other forms of official leniency stands in sharp contrast to his predecessor, Barack Obama, who used the clemency power more frequently than any chief executive since Harry Truman.

As of Nov. 23, Trump had granted clemency 44 times, including 28 pardons and 16 commutations. That’s the lowest total of any president since at least William McKinley, who served at the turn of the 20th century. Obama, by comparison, granted clemency 1,927 times during his eight-year tenure, including 212 pardons and 1,715 commutations. The only modern president who granted clemency almost as infrequently as Trump is George H.W. Bush, who granted 77 pardons and commutations in his single term.

How we did this

Looking at the same data another way, Trump has granted clemency to less than half of 1% of the more than 10,000 people who petitioned him for it through the end of the 2020 fiscal year (which ended Sept. 30), according to the Justice Department. That, too, is the lowest percentage of any president on record, though George W. Bush came close, granting clemency to just 2% of the more than 11,000 people who asked him for it during his eight years in office.

Clemency refers to multiple forms of presidential mercy. The two most common forms are pardons, which forgive past crimes and restore civil rights, and commutations, which completely or partially reduce sentences for those in prison or on community supervision. Two less-common forms are remissions, which reduce financial penalties associated with convictions, and respites, which are temporary reprieves that are usually granted to inmates for medical reasons.

The Justice Department’s statistics, it’s important to note, do not count clemency granted through proclamation or executive order, such as the actions taken by Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter to forgive thousands of Vietnam-era draft dodgers. The DOJ numbers also count some clemency recipients twice – for example, in cases where someone received both a pardon and a commutation.

While rare so far, Trump’s use of presidential clemency has caused controversy because of the nature of his pardons and commutations. Many of Trump’s clemency recipients have had a “personal or political connection to the president,” according to a July analysis by the Lawfare blog, and he has often circumvented the formal process through which clemency requests are typically considered.

But Trump is far from the only president who has faced scrutiny over his use of clemency. Obama’s frequent use of commutations, particularly for prisoners convicted of drug-related crimes, prompted criticism from Republicans, who said it benefited “an entire class of offenders” and infringed on the “lawmaking authority” of the legislative branch. And President Bill Clinton drew bipartisan condemnation for pardoning a fugitive commodities trader, Marc Rich, on his last day in office in 2001.

Presidents have generally become less forgiving over time, at least when looking at the proportion of clemency requests they have granted. Every president from McKinley to Carter granted clemency to at least 20% of those who asked for it, according to the Justice Department data. But the percentages have fallen to the single digits for every president since George H.W. Bush, including Obama, who granted clemency to just 5% of those who petitioned him for it.


Obama’s relatively low percentage, however, is largely due to the fact that his administration encouraged federal prisoners to apply for leniency under a program known as the Clemency Initiative. The program, which launched in April 2014 and ended in 2017 when Obama left office, allowed “qualified federal inmates” – those who met certain Justice Department criteria – to apply to have their prison sentences commuted. The initiative led to a surge in petitions and helps explain why Obama’s use of clemency tilted so heavily toward sentence commutations, rather than pardons.

Overall, Obama received more than 36,000 clemency petitions during his time in office, by far the largest total of any president on record. Petitions have declined considerably during Trump’s tenure

John Gramlich is a senior writer/editor at Pew Research Center.

Kristen Bialik is a former research assistant at Pew Research Center.

Fast facts on Americans’ views about social media as Facebook faces legal challenge

BY MONICA ANDERSON

Kyodo via AP Images

Monica Anderson is an associate director of research at Pew Research Center.

The Federal Trade Commission and nearly every state sued Facebook on Wednesday, alleging that the firm’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp resulted in unfair business practices and calling for these companies to be broken up. The action comes seven weeks after the FTC and a smaller group of states sued Google on antitrust grounds and months after Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg – along with the heads of Apple, Amazon and Google – appeared before Congress about their firms’ role in the marketplace. The new legal challenges could have a defining impact on major technology companies as a whole, with lawmakers on both sides advocating for stronger oversight of the industry.

Here are some key findings about Americans’ attitudes toward the tech industry – and social media in particular – based on Pew Research Center surveys.

Americans favor more, not less, regulation of major technology companies, according to a Center survey conducted in June. Some 47% of U.S. adults think the government should be regulating major technology companies more than it is now, while just 11% think these companies should be regulated less. About four-in-ten (39%) believe government regulation should stay at its current level.

Americans’ knowledge of the business side of social media companies is relatively low, with many being unable to correctly identify which digital platforms are under the Facebook umbrella. Just 29% of Americans correctly named WhatsApp and Instagram as two companies owned by Facebook in a June 2019 survey that quizzed Americans about their digital knowledge. (In fall 2019, Facebook rebranded these products to help clarify it was the owner.)

Facebook remains one of the most widely used social media sites among adults in the U.S. In an early 2019 survey, roughly seven-in-ten adults (69%) said they ever used the platform. YouTube is the only other site that matches Facebook’s reach: 73% of adults report ever using the video sharing site. But certain online platforms, most notably Facebook-owned Instagram, have an especially strong following among adults under the age of 30. Instagram is one of the few sites measured in the survey that has seen steady growth over the past several years. As of the 2019 survey, Facebook’s WhatsApp was also used by 20% of American adults.

Overall, 72% of U.S. adults say social media companies have too much power and influence in politics today, according to a June 2020 survey. Majorities of both Republicans and Democrats – including independents who lean to either party – believe social media companies wield too much power and influence, but Republicans are more likely than Democrats to express this view (82% vs. 63%).

About two-thirds of Americans (64%) say social media have a mostly negative effect on the way things are going in the country today, according to a survey fielded this July. Just one-in-ten Americans say social media sites have a mostly positive effect on the way things are going, and one-quarter say these platforms have a neither positive nor negative effect.