Virginia and our nation are facing one of the greatest challenges of our lifetime. The lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans are now at stake from an invisible enemy: the coronavirus and COVID-19. But it’s a false choice to say we can only save lives or save livelihoods. That’s...
America’s and Virginia’s unemployment insurance program – born of the Great Depression and the Social Security Act of 1935 – may be another casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus has mutated unemployment insurance into a form not financially sustainable. Each state has its own unemployment insurance trust fund, financed...
COVID-19 has caused most transit agencies to enter crisis mode. Ridership, understandably, has declined between 50 and 95 percent in most major cities during the shutdown. Transit agencies are also spending more resources sanitizing buses and trains. And to protect drivers many transit operators are boarding bus passengers through the...
In February 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals 9th Circuit held that sewage pollutants at the County of Maui, Hawaii, were traceable to wells which discharge into groundwater. That is a violation of the Clean Water Act. In September 2018, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the Clean...
The revolution has merely been postponed, not cancelled. Governor Ralph Northam has asked the General Assembly to put off until May 1, 2021 the implementation of several key pro-union changes in Virginia’s labor and employment laws, including a 31 percent increase in the minimum wage. Saturday, April 11 was the...
As with the 9/11 terror attacks, one’s first reaction to a disaster like the COVID-19 pandemic is often, “This changes everything,” or less apocalyptically, “The world will never be the same.” The latter is closer to the truth, but I will amend it by saying that many things will likely...
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) has within its Title I Section 1110 entitled “Emergency EIDL grants.” The Small Business Administration (SBA) states on its website, “The SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) provides vital economic support to small businesses to help overcome the temporary loss of...
The schools in Arlington County are refusing to teach children anything new out of a concern for “equity.” Although the schools are physically closed due to coronavirus, students have been doing their assignments from home using school-issued electronic devices. Now school officials fear students will learn differently if they come...
With so much uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 crisis, it is difficult to predict how the economy will fair for the remainder of the year. Many economists have been looking for a drop in real gross domestic product — the monetary value of all final goods and services produced — to...
Jefferson Journal: Mutated By COVID, Unemployment Insurance Unsustainable
America’s and Virginia’s unemployment insurance program — born of the Great Depression and the Social Security Act of 1935 — may be another casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus has mutated unemployment insurance into a form not financially sustainable.
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