The Damn Virus: Local governments await budget slaughter; supes to investigate county hospital. Local governments across the East Bay are now entering budget season. Alameda County Administrator Susan Muranishi is expected to provide the Board of Supervisors with an update on the Fiscal Year 2020-21 budget this week.…

News you don't want to miss for April 17-19:

1. "The good news: California has an $18 billion rainy day fund, the biggest in its history.…

PERHAPS we should wait until we have achieved the same level of containment of the virus as Germany before we think about restarting football (How German football intends to restart next week – and what the Scottish game can learn from their masterplan, Monday).

On this edition of Your Call’s Media Roundtable, we're discussing the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Italy and other hard hit European countries. According to The European Commission, Europe’s economy will shrink by 7.4 percent this year.

What is a recession? How can it impact you? What can be done to make economic downturns more manageable? Join Jason Schenker as he describes an economy in recession, how recessions impact various industries, personal and business strategies to counter recession risks, and the drivers that bring an economy out of recession. He covers how recessions impact jobs, industries, and financial markets. He discusses consumer spending, real estate, stocks, interest rates, business strategy, and investments. Jason also shares what he considers to be the number one rule for workers to keep in mind.

If a downturn comes, the Seattle area benefits from a diverse economy. But it still has a few weak spots that would ripple out.

Washington state and the city of Seattle have both made far-reaching promises to cover college tuition costs for many students. Despite the economic downturn, they say they will keep those promises.

The economic shock caused by the coronavirus is accelerating a tech-industry shift from prioritizing growth to profitability, meaning rank-and-file workers will no longer be immune to the forces confronting so many workers throughout America.

The European Commission on Wednesday downgraded the growth forecasts for the Eurozone and the European Union and said the region is set to witness a recession of "historic proportions" this year due to the "major shock" from the coronavirus, or Covid-19, pandemic and the consequent lockdown.

IBM Business Partners can listen to this series of short, powerful discussions and learn how to help their clients deal with the pain points of the current complex economic environment.

How to Prepare for the Trump Recession

The global coronavirus pandemic has put our economy in free-fall.

Even through Donald Trump’s reckless economic policies, like his pointless trade war with China or his deficit-busting tax cuts for his billionaire donors, the economy has somehow managed to keep chugging along — until now. 

All of the stock market gains from Trump’s time in office have been wiped out, and over the course of just over one week in March the Dow Jones Industrial Average experienced its five largest drops in history. 

Worse than a plummeting stock market, businesses and major industries have been forced to shutter their windows to help combat the rapid spread of the virus, putting hundreds of thousands of workers’ paychecks at risk. 

A recession is inevitable at this point. Here are 3 things we can do to prepare.  

Number one: We need to reform unemployment insurance so it reflects the needs of today’s economy. 

When it was first created in 1935, unemployment insurance was designed to help full-time workers weather downturns until they got their old jobs back. But there are fewer full-time jobs in today’s economy, and fewer people who are laid off get their old jobs back again. 

As a result, only 27% of unemployed workers receive benefits today, compared to 49% of workers in the 1950s. We need to expand unemployment coverage so that everyone is protected.

Number two: We need to strengthen Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, also known as  public assistance. 

Since its creation in 1996, the number of families receiving cash assistance has declined dramatically – and not because they’re doing well. Between 2006 and 2018, just 13% of families were lifted out of poverty, while the number of families receiving public assistance fell by 39%.

Already weak, the program didn’t hold up well during the Great Recession. Funding doesn’t automatically expand during economic downturns – meaning the more families are in need, the less money there is to help them. The program also has strict work requirements, which can’t be fulfilled in a deep recession. Worse yet, many individuals in need have already exhausted their five years of lifetime eligibility for assistance.

We need to reform the public assistance program so that more families in need are eligible. It should be easier to waive the strict work eligibility requirements during the economic downturn, and the lifetime five-year limit should be suspended.

Number three: We need to protect the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps. 

Unlike public assistance, SNAP responded well during the Great Recession. Its requirements are designed to expand during economic downturns or recessions.

Waiving work requirements during the Great Recession made thousands of people in need eligible for the program who otherwise wouldn’t have been. Between December 2007 and December 2009, the number of SNAP participants rose by 45%. The program helped keep an estimated 3.8 million families out of poverty in 2009.

But that might not be an option this time around, as SNAP has come under attack from the Trump administration, which is trying to enact a draconian rule change that would kick an estimated 700,000 of our most vulnerable citizens off of the program. Luckily, a judge blocked the rule from going into effect, but the administration is still fighting to enforce it — even in the middle of a global pandemic. We need to make sure SNAP’s flexibility and ability to respond to economic downturns is protected before the next recession hits.

Stronger safety nets are not only good for individuals and families in need. They will also prevent the looming recession from becoming an even deeper and longer economic crisis. 

The dramatic fall came before reported coronavirus cases began to surge in March, economists note, so it's only the tip of the iceberg.

Owen Bieber, who shepherded the UAW through a recession, the Reagan era, industry downsizing and rapidly expanding global competition, dies at 90.

THE British economy is set to plummet into its worst recession for 300 years because of the coronavirus crisis, the Bank of England warned yesterday.

Is there such a thing as a "cathartic recession"? A recession that purges the demons of excess from the economy and punishes the badly-behaved for their sins? I'm not sure there is. But I unwittingly found myself in an argument...

Hear how people are making changes to their lifestyle to adapt to the current economic trend.

Erin Ironsides has felt the economic impact of the pandemic first-hand after recently being laid off from the airline she worked for.

If we have an economic downturn, it will be bad.

There are better ways to challenge Trump on the economy.

And now, we’re woefully unprepared.

Policymakers need to step up and do something useful — yesterday.

David Murray-Hundley, our resident Grumpy Entrepreneur, on the eight things for startups to consider if the bubble bursts

(Kessler Foundation) Andrew Houtenville, Ph.D., research director of the University of New Hampshire's Institute on Disability: 'Unlike the Great Recession and the Great Depression, many workers in the COVID Recession may be 'on temporary layoff' (aka furloughed) and may be recalled, rather than losing their jobs completely. To further investigate this issue, we plan to release a Special nTIDE Report on May 15.'

The Virginia Beach City schools, urged on by parents, decided to make a big change, doubling the amount of recess the district offered, from just 15 minutes a day to 30.

There could be an 8.4 percent reduction in the U.S. teaching corps, and some states could see reductions as large as 20 percent, according to a new analysis by the Learning Policy Institute.

The law passed after parent groups lobbied for it and will require schools to provide 20 consecutive minutes of recess daily for students in kindergarten through 6th grade.

The hiring pool improved for schools when the recession squeezed teachers, study finds.

Adequate sleep is critical for adolescent health. Available data suggest a historical downward trend in sleep behavior, but there has been no rigorous evaluation of recent US trends.

The proportion of adolescents who regularly obtain ≥7 hours of sleep is decreasing. Decreases in sleep exhibit period effects that are constant across adolescents according to gender, race, socioeconomic factors, and urbanicity. The gender gap in adequate sleep is widening. (Read the full article)

DOVER — A new state program is designed to help families and individuals who have experienced foreclosures, job loss, or other financial difficulties stemming from the financial crisis that began in 2008, Governor John Carney and other officials announced today. Fresh Start, a partnership between the Delaware State Housing Authority and the state’s financial empowerment […]

There could be an 8.4 percent reduction in the U.S. teaching corps, and some states could see reductions as large as 20 percent, according to a new analysis by the Learning Policy Institute.

Increase your allocation to gold via the gold fund route from the safety and comfort of your home.

Debt levels around Europe, especially in southern states, forecast to rise alarmingly, but EU commission remained confident countries can manage, despite fears of a second viral wave.

The Bank of England on Thursday warned that the UK economy is heading towards its deepest recession on record, as the British economy will shrink by 14 percent this year. The Covid-19 pandemic was "dramatically reducing jobs and incomes in the UK", it said. Bank governor Andrew Bailey told the BBC there would be no quick return to normality. The EU has forecast an eight-percent contraction for the UK.

The UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), described as an integral part of its highly-ambitious development agenda, may be in deep trouble. Aimed at addressing some of the global challenges the world faces– including extreme poverty and hunger, inequalities in incomes and gender, climate change and environmental degradation– the SDGs now seem threatened by a […]

The post UN’s Development Goals Threatened by a World Economy Facing Recession appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Overtime pay, a barometer of strength in corporate activity, also fell at a record pace in March, data showed.

As the COVID-19 pandemic worsened in April, many Americans were shocked by the extent that black Americans were being disproportionately impacted: higher infection rates, more deaths and greater job loss. But many black Americans were not surprised. This is not new. The same dynamic has been going on at times of crisis for decades and […]

The post Black Americans are Bearing the Brunt of Coronavirus Recession – This Should Come as no Surprise appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Synaptic activity in neurons leads to the rapid activation of genes involved in mammalian behavior. ATP-dependent chromatin remodelers such as the BAF complex contribute to these responses and are generally thought to activate transcription. However, the mechanisms keeping such “early activation” genes silent have been a mystery. In the course...

NBC News wants to hear from people who graduated in a recession and from students set to graduate this spring.

Historically, recessions have hit men harder. This time it's different, economists say.

Europeans will see the worst economic shock since the Great Depression due to coronavirus, the European Union predicted.

The UK is facing the deepest recession not just in living memory but for centuries, the Bank of England has warned

Many analysts expected the stocks to fall back to earth when the next downturn came

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described Canada’s current economic situation as a recession on Friday, and that should come as no surprise, says Finance Minister Bill Morneau, as the latest economic figures show two consecutive months of major job losses.

People who make their living through on-demand platforms face the possibility of a recession aggravated by a drop in demand caused by coronavirus fears.

As the world economy is falling into one of the biggest contractions of the last decades, a new study of economic recession patterns finds that the likelihood of a downturn was high even before the onset of the Coronavirus crisis.

Monica Miller explains the alphabet soup of possible recession shapes for the coronavirus-hit global economy.

The good news: The state is far better prepared to meet this challenge than it was a decade ago. The bad news: It will need help from the feds, and a lot of it.

A looming recession due to the coronavirus imperils Champagne, buffalo mozzarella and other European delicacies. They're luxuries, but also livelihoods.