Detroit News. Feb. 15, 2021.
Editorial: Lockdown job losses disparately impact working poor
Michigan’s lockdown measures have resulted in devastating job losses for the hospitality and leisure industries, even as other industries less affected by COVID-19 restrictions saw employment gains. These businesses were harmed by no fault of their own and deserve extra help from the state.
Michigan leaders, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, must do more to aid sectors of the economy that bore the brunt of the governor’s shutdowns and offer afflicted businesses a way to grow back. Restaurants faced some of the most restrictive orders, and many have closed permanently.
An estimated 3,000 restaurants across the state have gone out of business. The restaurant industry employs 200,000 fewer people in Michigan than it did last year.
According to a report released late last month by the Anderson Economic Group, the leisure and hospitality industries bucked the trend of statewide economic recovery, losing 59,700 jobs from November to December as Whitmer placed the state under new shutdown orders.
The retail industry, by contrast, was allowed to say open and saw an increase of 7,500 jobs from November to January.
Employment hemorrhaging in the hospitality and leisure industries - most of the lost jobs are in the hotel and restaurant sectors - shows how continued, across-the-board restrictions unevenly hurt these businesses and those who work for them the most.
“There is a screaming silence when it comes to the working poor,” says economist Patrick Anderson, founder and CEO of AEG.
Anderson points out that those who work in service industries are often economically disadvantaged, while the wealthy and middle class were largely unaffected by the restrictions as they are more likely to be able to work from home.
“Those that are concerned about the most vulnerable have to be taking a serious look at these government policies,” Anderson says. “The burden of these orders falls heavily on the working poor.”
Individuals without college degrees saw their work dry up during the pandemic as smaller businesses lacked resources or options to continue to employ them remotely.
The poor and minorities saw employment opportunities shuttered by executive fiat for large parts of the year.
The Black unemployment rate in Michigan reached 35.5% in the second quarter of last year. The White unemployment rate was about half that at 17.5%, according to the liberal Economic Policy Institute.
Clearly, the governor’s COVID-19 restrictions have hurt vulnerable workers with one-size-fits-all orders that unilaterally shut down entire industries for months.
Those restrictions must be further loosened, and additional shutdowns avoided to reverse the economic damage.
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Traverse City Record-Eagle. Feb. 19, 2021.
Editorial: There are better ways for the GT board to spend its time
Taxpayers simply aren’t getting what they’re paying for from Grand Traverse County commissioners.
Only a handful of weeks after giving themselves a 72 percent raise, county commissioners wasted yet another meeting on a symbolic resolution that would have them wade into politics well beyond their purview. It’s a frustrating trend that seems driven by board Chairman Rob Hentschel and vice-Chair Ron Clous as they appear bent on using their office to trumpet political stances on taxpayers’ time.
This time Clous dragged the board into the fray with a resolution to applaud U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman, a move that drew both kudos and criticism from constituents during hours of public comments. The document listed a litany of Bergman’s actions from the past few years - some topics folks from across the political spectrum could agree are positives, and plenty of others that dove into hyper-partisan territory.
The latest overture, like others that came before (including ones on Line 5, the Second Amendment and public health orders), monopolized meeting time when commissioners could be setting policy for the county they were elected to govern. County commissioners should focus their sparse meeting time on debating issues over which they have actual sway.
And again, we were left wondering how our county board couldn’t find something more constructive to do with its time? Are they not concerned about providing taxpayers some value in return for our investment in their salaries?
How about working on solutions for the county’s ongoing child care drought? Or doing something meaningful to address the county’s aging, cobbled-together jail? Or working with the city to build a new senior center? Or a deep examination of its pension and retirement health care debts? Or a few minutes to consider ways to better support the county’s public health workers as they spend their time in the trenches battling the ongoing pandemic? Or planning for future capital improvements? Or any one of the issues highlighted in the community survey they spent $16,000 to conduct?
The list of issues Grand Traverse County commissioners could spend their time examining could go on for pages before treading outside their purview.
This is not an “all commissioners” issue either. We were proud Wednesday to witness a bi-partisan split between those commissioners who see their office as a pulpit to serve their egos and those who believe they were elected to serve their constituents.
Commissioner Darryl V. Nelson gets it. He said “I’m not on the board of commissioners to give my personal political opinions. I’m on the BOC to do what’s right for the county, long-term.”
Likewise, Penny Morris, a Republican, joined the board’s two Democrats to oppose the divisive measure.
We hope the four commissioners who recognized the frivolity of yet another symbolic resolution can help steer the board toward more meaningful use of their time.
But we aren’t holding our breath since, for some reason, a few leaders on the commission seem fixated on tossing around their two cents on our dime.
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The Mining Journal. Feb. 17, 2021.
Editorial: Zero can be a good thing, if it refers to COVID-19 cases
Not too many people need to be told that 2020 was a less-than-stellar year on many fronts, but with the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, COVID-19 still being in full swing and extremely cold weather in many parts of the country, including the Upper Peninsula, 2021 is posing its challenges too.
So, it comes as a welcome bit of news that Northern Michigan University announced on Monday it had no active positive cases of COVID-19, and no students were quarantined in Spalding Hall on campus.
In fact, the COVID dashboard, found at nmu.edu/safe-on-campus/dashboard, indicated there still were no positive cases as of Tuesday.
We hear of big outbreaks at other campuses, and fortunately, that has not been the case at NMU.
NMU did it right. It set protocols early, testing students, faculty and staff diligently at the beginning of both semesters this 2020-21 academic year.
It conducts surveillance testing to continue monitoring the situation, and continually stresses safety measures such as social distancing, washing hands, wearing masks and staying home when ill.
The campus itself also was changed to make it safer, such as the reconfiguration of classrooms. This included installing plexiglass barriers to enhance student safety in advance of the fall semester.
NMU also has been transparent in its efforts, with correspondence from NMU President Fritz Erickson to students, faculty and staff regularly posted on the NMU website. Its dashboard provides real-time updates regarding the status of COVID-19 on campus.
NMU’s website also has lots of useful information regarding COVID-19, including where to find resources on exposure, quarantine and close contacts; masks and face coverings; the required mass screening; and vaccination information.
To be proactive, NMU provides COVID-19 information for future students on its website as well. Potential students meet one on one with faculty members in their areas of interest and can take a video tour through campus, for example. NMU also offers in-person campus visits with limited capacity.
Someone could argue that it’s easier for a small university such as NMU to stay safe, with fewer students making COVID-19 protocols easier to manage.
However, NMU’s methods seem to be working.
The university might not have a zero positive rate every day, but the fact it has achieved that status this far into the pandemic is admirable.
We hope this positive trend continues.
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