Inslee’s emergency orders within his authority, court says
OLYMPIA — Gov. Jay Inslee had the legal authority to issue emergency orders in an attempt to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, a state Supreme Court commissioner said Thursday.
In a strongly worded opinion, Commissioner Michael E. Johnston dismissed a lawsuit filed last month by four owners of health clubs, who claimed Inslee overstepped his powers by putting them under “house arrest” and selecting which businesses are essential and which are nonessential.
Johnston rejected their request for a writ of mandamus — an order from the court to another branch of government to follow the law — saying the actions the group cited were all within Inslee’s discretion under the state’s emergency powers law.
“Although petitioners deserve empathy for the struggles they and their businesses currently face in relation to this public health emergency, they ask this court to do what it cannot: control the governor’s discretionary actions,” he wrote.
Some of the group’s claims were frivolous, such as the suggestion Inslee declared martial law or that they were under “house arrest,” Johnston wrote. They are able to leave their homes to shop for food and engage in limited recreational activities.
“A proclamation that leaves persons free to a walk in the park or visit the grocery store while engaged in social distancing is not tantamount to house arrest,” Johnston wrote.
At least one of the people making the request along with the lawyer who filed it and a group of supporters assembled on the steps of the Temple of Justice to announce they had filed the request, he noted.
They were also asking the court to declare the statutes the governor used for his emergency proclamation unconstitutional, but that can’t be done with a writ of mandamus.
“They see relief by way of the wrong vehicle in the wrong forum,” Johnston wrote, adding the request is “so completely devoid of merit that the best use of judicial resources is to summarily dismiss it.”
— The Spokesman-Review
May jobless rate falls to 13.3%
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The government reported Friday that the unemployment rate dropped to 13.3% last month after soaring to 14.7% in April, an unexpectedly positive turn that suggests the pandemic-induced recession may have hit bottom.
Most analysts had expected the rate would keep rising, perhaps as high as 20%.
But instead employers also added 2.5 million jobs in May after shedding a record-smashing 20.7 million positions the prior month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
California’s unemployment and jobs statistics for May will be released in two weeks, and are likely to trail the nation’s rebound, largely because of the mix of its industries and the fact that California has been slower to lift lockdowns and restrictions on businesses. The state’s jobless rate in April was 15.5%.
The improvement reflects the reopening of businesses in many parts of the country, and it came as a huge surprise to analysts.
Economists on average were expecting another loss of about 7.5 million jobs in May, according to Moody’s Analytics.
Moody’s labor economist Sophia Koropeckyj noted that the collection rates for both the household and payroll jobs surveys — from which the unemployment and job numbers are derived — were lower than normal.
And government statisticians said the actual unemployment rate in May may have been 3 percentage points higher because many people may have misclassified themselves by saying they were absent from work, even though they were laid off and should have been counted as unemployed.
Although the report provided a glimmer of good news, most mainstream economists fear that recovery will be long and slow.
“The bounce-back started earlier than most expected, but don’t get too excited about this one month of data,” said Nick Bunker, research director at Indeed Hiring Lab. “Job growth rising by 2.5 million and the unemployment rate dropping by over a percentage point are positive developments. But it’s not clear how enduring this will be. Furthermore, the labor market is still in a terrible spot with employment only 87% of where it was before the coronavirus crisis began.”
No matter how quickly or completely America opens the doors for business again, many analysts said, full recovery is expected to take at least three to five years. If a second large wave of infections occurs in the fall, as epidemiologists say it could in at least some parts of the country, the outlook could be even darker.
“The hole we’re in is just so deep,” said Heidi Shierholz, former chief economist at the U.S. Labor Department and now with the Economic Policy Institute. “Even if you get a fast bounce-back, it could still be bad. I do think it’s going to be a long haul.”
Before Friday’s report, David Shulman, a senior UCLA economist, said he was expecting May to be the low point of the recession. “It now looks like April was the bottom,” he said.
Shulman said he and his colleagues at the UCLA Anderson Forecast were now likely to revise their outlook, to be released June 24. Earlier he said unemployment for both the state and the nation was likely to remain in double digits through 2022. “That’s probably off the table,” he said.
At the same time, Shulman and other economists said the latest jobs report appeared to be inconsistent with government data showing more than 31 million people received jobless benefits in May. “So are 10 million people getting paychecks from employers and collecting unemployment benefits too?” asked Christopher Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG Bank in New York.
— Los Angeles Times
Trump says jobless drop makes it ‘a great day’ for George Floyd
President Donald Trump suggested Friday that George Floyd is “looking down” from heaven and marveling at this month’s marginally positive jobs report, calling it “a great day” for the dead black man.
The report from the Labor Department showed that the national unemployment rate dropped from 14.7% to 13.3% in May — and Trump claimed that “hopefully” brings comfort to Floyd, who died last month after a white Minneapolis cop dug a knee into his neck for nearly 10 minutes.
“Hopefully, George is looking down right now and saying this is a great thing happening for our country. A great day for him, a great day for everybody,” Trump said as part of a 40-minute rant in the White House Rose Garden. “This is a great day for everybody. This is a great day in terms of equality.”
Trump’s shocking comment about Floyd came even as the U.S. coronavirus death toll hovered near 110,000 and the nation remained in turmoil amid mass protests against police brutality.
The Friday jobs report surprised some economists who had expected that the unemployment rate would continue to plummet and reach the highest levels since the Great Depression.
Instead, as some states have rushed to lift social distancing restrictions and reopen their economies, 2.5 million new jobs were added and the unemployment rate dipped by 1.5%, the report showed.
Still, while overall unemployment dipped, the report showed that the rates of African-Americans and Hispanics out of work continued to increase.
Asked by an African-American reporter about that disparity, Trump answered dismissively.
“You are something,” the president said and waved his hand disdainfully at the reporter.
— New York Daily News
Washington’s stacked COVID-19 relief concert postponed to honor ongoing protests
Washington fans will have to wait a little longer for what looks to be the (virtual) concert of the summer.
A star-studded COVID-19 relief concert initially slated to air next week is being postponed in light of countrywide protests following George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police. Organizers All In WA announced Thursday that the concert will now air 10 p.m. ET June 24.
“We recognize the pain and injustice the Black and African American community is facing, once again, and the need to honor the ongoing marches, protests, and organizing,” All In WA organizers wrote in a news release. “We also want to give space for our community to focus on what matters most at the moment; acknowledging and addressing systemic racism and violence that dehumanizes Black people and families, and taking steps to rebuild to a new reality.”
The concert is set to include a slate of Washington music heavyweights, including Pearl Jam, Brandi Carlile, Macklemore, Dave Matthews, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard and more.
The Amazon-backed concert will broadcast on Amazon Music’s Twitch channel. A recording of the concert will be available on Amazon Prime after the initial airing.
— The Seattle Times
