(OPINION) Micahel Snyder – We already knew that this was going to be the worst winter for the U.S. economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s, but now a new round of lockdowns threatens to rip the guts out of hundreds of thousands of small businesses all around the country.
As I write this article, 33 million people are under “stay-at-home orders” in California alone. With each passing day, state governments are implementing even more new restrictions, and those new restrictions are going to increasingly choke the life out of economic activity in this nation. The good news is that most of the corporate giants have enough resources to weather another round of lockdowns, but countless small businesses do not.
In San Francisco, some small businesses that have served the city for generations now find themselves on the edge of extinction… “I’ve been walking around the city nonstop talking to small businesses owners and every story is sadder than the next,” said Rory Cox, the founder of the newly-formed San Francisco Small Business Alliance. “Everyone is like, ‘I wake up every day and I don’t know how much longer I can do this.
I had 60 employees but now all I have is six, or now it’s only me.’ These are family businesses, these are moms and dads, brothers and sisters. I feel firmly we’re the backbone of the city. And they’re destroying us, they’re ripping us apart, they’re tearing out the heart and soul of the city.” Traditionally, small businesses have been the primary engine of job growth in the United States, but now they are laying off workers in droves once again.
So far this year, more than 70 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits, and this unprecedented tsunami of job losses was caused by the original round of lockdowns. Now a new wave of lockdowns is upon us, and there is going to be extreme economic pain all over America. Sometimes it can be mind-numbing to talk about the millions upon millions of Americans that are now in horrifying financial distress, but each one of those individuals has a name…
Tina Morton recently faced a choice: Pay bills — or buy a birthday gift for a child? Derrisa Green is falling further behind on rent. Sylvia Soliz has had her electricity cut off. Unemployment has forced aching decisions on millions of Americans and their families in the face of a rampaging viral pandemic that has closed shops and restaurants, paralyzed travel, and left millions jobless for months. READ MORE
