July 9, 2020
The Department of Labor announced last week that America added 4.8 million jobs in June, which means that more than 7.5 million jobs have been created in the past two months. Just today, the Department of Labor announced that last week’s new unemployment claims fell to 1.3 million, thus showing the number of people seeking aid has been on a slow decline since the initial spike in unemployment when the pandemic hit the economy in March. Also,
last week the Senate and House of Representatives passed, and the President signed, a bill extending the Paycheck Protection Program until August 8th. This very popular program has $130 billion still available.
A good portion of the United States is experiencing another influx of COVID-19 cases. Great sectors of the United States are working to recover from the effects of the economic shutdown. Congress, the Administration, and the Federal Reserve have moved mountains to help people and companies that have been impacted, but the ultimate solution to our economic problem is the development of a vaccine that will solve our health crisis.
The Senate is working in-state, and the House is in pro-forma session. The Senate and the House of Representatives will return to Washington on July 20, and among the things they will work on is the next stimulus program, dubbed CARES 2. Heard on the Hill will return next time. For this edition of TWIW we have prepared two special articles.
Sean Callinicos is a policy expert and government relations expert in health care, but he has a special focus in the vaccine industry. He was Assistant Vice President for Federal Government Affairs for Sanofi Pasteur during the avian and swine flu crises, and his work helped open the door for the development of America’s vaccine industry. Steve Gordon and Ramona Lessen interviewed Sean to learn about his experiences at Sanofi Pasteur and to discuss the current state of our vaccine industry.
The House of Representatives Financial Services Committee held an oversight hearing last week on the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve’s response to the pandemic. The invited guests were Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell. John McKechnie, Total Spectrum’s Senior Partner and financial services expert, provided a summary and overview, and Ramona Lessen monitored the entire hearing.
As usual, Jesse Weathington gives us a look at how the Georgia General Assembly finished up and the latest in Georgia with his Gold Dome Report.