This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse Blog.
Most of us have never experienced anything like this in our entire lifetimes. Fear of COVID-19, endless civil unrest in major U.S. cities, and a whole host of other factors have combined to plunge us into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
On Friday, the Labor Department announced that the unemployment rate in the U.S. fell to just 10.2 percent last month, and if that number was actually accurate that would be pretty good news. Unfortunately, it simply does not square with all of the other numbers that we have been seeing. According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if honest numbers were being used the unemployment rate would actually be 30 percent right now, and I believe that figure is much closer to the reality that we are facing. In February, 152 million Americans were working, and since that time more than 55 million have filed new claims for unemployment benefits. Unless tens of millions of those people have been filing fraudulent claims, there is no way in the world that the unemployment rate should be about 10 percent right now.
Other numbers tell a similar story. According to one recent study, 24 percent of all Americans have missed at least one bill payment since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic…
Indeed, paying off bills are an unavoidable part of life, even during a pandemic. Unfortunately, a new survey of 2,000 Americans finds that one in four (24%) have already missed at least one payment since the pandemic began.
Among that group, 26% say they haven’t paid their cell phone or cable bills. Another 25% failed to pay for streaming services, and perhaps more worryingly, some of their electricity or utilities bills.
That doesn’t sound like a recovery.
What that sounds like is an economic depression.
Americans are also missing their rent and mortgage payments at a staggering rate as well. In fact, more than one-fourth of the entire country did not pay their rent or mortgage payment during the month of July…
An estimated 27% of adults in the U.S. missed their rent or mortgage payment for July, according to a nationwide survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau weekly over the last three months. Among renters alone, just over one-third (34%) said during the waning days of July that they had little to no confidence that they could make their August rent payment, a stark measure of the ongoing economic devastation for households stretched to the brink by coronavirus pandemic.
But we are supposed to believe that the unemployment rate is only about 10 percent right now.
Right…
In some states, the looming eviction crisis threatens to be absolutely catastrophic.
For example, we are being told that in South Carolina a whopping 52 percent of all renters “are at risk of eviction”…
In South Carolina alone, 52 percent of renter households can’t pay their rent and are at risk of eviction, according to an analysis of census data by the consulting firm Stout Risius Ross. About 185,000 evictions could be filed in the state over the next four months.
That doesn’t sound like a recovery.
What that sounds like is an economic depression.
And we see similar numbers when we look at business owners around the country. If you can believe it, 83 percent of all New York City restaurant owners did not pay all of their rent in July…
The state of the New York City restaurant industry is in dire straits. July proved to be another disastrous month for restaurants, bars, and nightlife establishments across the city with a majority unable to pay rent in July, a new survey found.
NYC Hospitality Alliance surveyed about 500 owners and operators of eateries in the city, with 83% of respondents indicating they couldn’t pay the entire rent in July while 37% paid no rent at all.
83 percent.
Let that number sink in for a moment.
That doesn’t sound like a recovery.
What that sounds like is an economic depression.
And I am certainly not the only one using the “d-word”. The following originally comes from a Time Magazine article entitled “The Next Global Depression Is Coming and Optimism Won’t Slow It Down”…
First, the current slowdown is without doubt global. Most postwar U.S. recessions have limited their worst effects to the domestic economy. But most were the result of domestic inflation or a tightening of national credit markets. That is not the case with COVID-19 and the current global slowdown. This is a synchronized crisis, and just as the relentless rise of China over the past four decades has lifted many boats in richer and poorer countries alike, so slowdowns in China, the U.S. and Europe will have global impact on our globalized world. This coronavirus has ravaged every major economy in the world. Its impact is felt everywhere.
You have probably noticed that things are really starting to get crazy out there.
People are getting very desperate, and very desperate people do very desperate things.
In one community in Texas, it is being reported that someone is actually killing horses and eating them…
At least five horses have been killed around Pearland, Texas since late May — but it’s the way they’re being killed and what’s being done to their carcasses that’s particularly disturbing to locals.
Pearland police made their first discovery June 10. Responding to an animal cruelty call along the 14000 block of Kirby Drive, they found a horse, dead and butchered.
You would have to be incredibly twisted to do such a thing, but as I have been warning for a very long time, we are going to see much crazier things in the years ahead.
Of course, countless other Americans can also see that society is starting to come apart at the seams, and this has helped to fuel an unprecedented spike in gun sales…
Gun sales surged 135% year-over-year in July to about 2 million and have already matched all of last year, according to a report released earlier this week by research consultancy Small Arms Analytics and Forecasting. Sales were up 145% in June, 80% in May and 71% in April.
We live at a time when rioting, looting, and violence are becoming commonplace, and crime rates are absolutely skyrocketing in our major cities.
And the worse economic conditions become, the worse the chaos is going to get.
So I would very much encourage you to set your affairs in order and to get prepared for what is ahead because the time remaining to do such things is very limited.
***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.***
About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com. By purchasing the book you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream, and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial, or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and anyway that you can share these articles with others is a great help. During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.
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Congratulations Michael Snyder on the new book. Sounds like an interesting read.
On the topic of unpaid rent & mortgages, an “OLLY OXEN FREE” (no need to pay) attitude by politicians is being used by many folks to displace the financial damage to their lives by Covid-19. I share your concern as once that genie was removed from the bottle, I think it will be incredibly difficult to return to financial norms.
This is nothing compared to what is coming, Imagine the entire electric grid collapses a month before the election. And only voting by mail is working. Massive food shortages and inflation coming just like in Venezuela, pile to the rafters all you can afford now. And buy up hundreds of lighters to make fire. I started raising rabbits. Started out with 6 in April, have 17 now, and 3 of the females ready to deliver litters in less than a month and one other doe delivering this weekend. If you are going to do this, you gotta get the cages built, buy, rabbit eating and drinking feeder utensils and loads of pellets.. and wild grasses, hay, and all things green, they will eat including bananas. My rabbits get raw carrots every morning. This is my long term protein food plan. And what ever I don’t want to eat, I can sell off for a cash flow. Rabbits here selling for $20 to $25 ea. or more.
Trump said that we will have to learn to speak Chinese if Biden gets elected to take over the covid economy.
Guess that that might be true!
Lesson number one. Probably not a coincidence that the words taught to me decades ago by someone that took a class in Chinese in which the teacher only taught a few words for the entire semester!
Ni Hau Ma Daifu = Hello Doctor
Andrea Iravani
Lets say approximately 320 million people in the U.S. 63 million on S.S , 55 million filed for unemployment, 152 million employed, say 5 million collecting S.S.I what are the remaining 40 to 50 million doing for a living?
Living responsibly on SS and VA pensions.
It’s darn hard.
VA benefits are the biggest fraud in our lifetimes.
These idiots volunteer to destroy other countries economies and cultures, destroy Americas credibility across the planet, then come home to be loathed and worshiped by ignorant patriotic morons, and these dopes get free healthcare for contributing to the downfall of America under a hijacked foreign policy, that destroys Americans freedoms.
YOU Vets, Ever ask yourself what you really fought for? Its was to fight for the fascist idiots grip for power to destroy America today as we witness. Stop the lies, you Veterans now sit here watching the country you took an oath to defend be destroyed, and you cowards line up for freebies pathetic sort of scum cowards you all are.
Here are the drivers of the crisis and why it won’t get better until they are addressed:
1) Endless credit creation by banks and financial institutions.
2) Borderless world and the flooding of people into urban areas. Many of those people do not practice hygiene and most are dependent on government aid. They will get very angry when that aid buys less and less.
3) Racial division and the lack of any cohesive national view. This is a problem across the Western world.
4) China’s desperate need to create and export cheap products to keep its population busy.
These factors are the kindling to the depressionary fire and will drive down living standards in most cities. Only cities that take the brave step of introducing electronic gating systems will keep high living standards. The cities that make the mistake of letting anyone come in will pay a heavy price in crime, homelessness, disease outbreaks, terrorism etc.
Frank Thoughts,
Borderless money is more of a force of corruption right now than individuals pouring into our borders. I do not support either. George Soros crashes economies through currency manipulation. He is not the only economic hitman. The treasury has bailed out foreogn owned banks and corporations, billed to
U.S. tax payers. Foreign owned banks are Federal Reserve member banks which started under Bill Clinton that act as vacuums in America, rewarded for insanely irresponsible risky gambling that send money from U.S. bank branches to branches in other countries and to those countries governments and citizens. They take all of the rewards and American citizens pay for their risks. They have assisted in destroying America, and were allowed to do this by our own organized crime rings that calls themselves governments. America punishes and terrorizes the responsible and rewards the irresponsible. They are parasites that will not allow people to succeed independent of them and will resort to crime in order to prevent them from succeeding even employing violations of RICO laws. They would be better off dead for the good of humanity.
Andrea Iravani
Totally agree. Most people do not how the financial system works and so do not know where money goes or how it is created.
It is why I absolutely pay the least amount of tax possible. To pay full taxes is to be a sucker to a system that takes that tax, hands it over to turd world dictatorships, client states, the military industrial complex and corrupt financial institutions.
You first made it illegal to water, then cemented-over productive, agricultural lands, here, replacing them with wall-to-wall McMansions, so expensive that noone could afford it without preferential treatment.
No productive labor would be found in the “opportunity zones”, but I bet you could tell exactly where the red line was drawn, by looking at the crime map.
2-3 generations, between snowy runoff filling sluices and watering the orchards and cattle, to hypodermic needles, street poop, and mad cat ladies walking around like the own the place.
When exactly did society start coming apart at the seams, then. When the latest stimulus of helicopter money arbitrarily failed to appear out of a purple haze? I would say, 100yrs ago, give or take.
cant pay the rent but have $ for dope cigs and the sauce.
Asshat is right;
They claim they can’t pay the bills,but they always somehow gots plenty of cash for pills,weed,powder, and cigs.
And don’t forget the latest iPhone,sneakers,video games,hairdo,bling, and
cosmetics.
Stop being so gullible.
Michael you are full of it. All around you you see doom and gloom. So do we. But what do you add to the conversation by pointing it out?
We have to read to the end to get your point. You want to sell books! But judging by your writing, your books can only be another litany of doom, with no practical suggestions except – buy my books, I’m promoting Jesus.
May I point out to you that if Jesus ever existed, he’s been dead a long, long time, and all the books by all his fans have no hint on how to manage what we’re in now.
So I consider your writing a complete waste of time, and my reading of it likewise. No more Michael Snyder for me.
Cmon’, speak up…