Record unemployment

Closed businesses create high unemployment percentage

Baylee Comer & Rita Nicholson | Co-Editor-in-Chief & Staff Writer

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has forced many businesses to temporarily close their doors, but some businesses are deemed essential and are allowed to remain open. But what exactly defines a business as essential is not quite clear.

According to “Business Insider,” each individual state has the power to decide which businesses are essential and which are not. However, there are some types of businesses that have been widely acknowledged as necessary to everyday life, such as grocery stores, gas stations and health care locations.

Most recreational businesses have been determined as nonessential. The aforementioned includes places, such as movie theaters, shopping malls and gyms. Each state may view a business as essential, depending on its location. Some states have kept the liquor stores and some restaurants open, for instance.

As many Americans are laid off or furloughed from their nonessential workplaces due to the virus, about 20 million people are filing for unemployment this week as of April 23. Many might think unemployment may only affect the income flow of the household, but the loss of employment has a deeper impact than that.

According to “The New York Times” columnist Binyamin Applebaum, even though one may eventually find a job, there are lasting impacts on the individual, family and health. Applebaum said an individual, who has lost their job, has a risk of developing depression. According to Pew Research Center, 38 percent of people unemployed longer than six months after the recession in 2010 said they felt they lost self-respect. Almost half of the people who were unemployed six months or more said the psychological impact of unemployment stained and impacted their relationships with other people.

These numbers are slightly decreased when individuals were unemployed for less than three months or unemployed between three to five months. The longer an individual is unemployed, the more they feel the effects of it.

Soon, the country will be reopened, but there will be phases to such reopening. The White House has put forth a reopening guideline which indicates how each phase is defined by the status the state must be, showing a decrease in the number of positive cases seen within the state. The White House assures these guidelines to be effective in reopening the country.