Launching more schools for Labor Day is perhaps the most critical. “You can’t have an open economy and closed schools,” said Strain. “State and local policymakers seem to want to have both at the same time and that is not an option. Workers cannot go to work in many cases if there are children at home. For those who work at home with children, they work short hours. “
The White House and the Trump campaign have leaned heavily in recent days on the idea of reopening the school, seeing it as a key campaign message to appeal to suburban women and stressed parents, despite the wide range of opinions between teachers and health officials.
Administration officials acknowledge that the president has few tools to force states and local school districts to reopen, in addition to using the White House pulpit, according to interviews with half a dozen current and former Republican officials and Republicans. administration close to the White House. .
Senior administration officials are exploring ways to incentivize state and city openness by redirecting funds or giving additional cash to districts, or allocating parts of the upcoming stimulus package to have state and local aid spent on costs. associates opening schools during a pandemic.
The White House Council of Economic Advisers circulated an internal report last week showing that a year of missed schooling leads to a persistent drop of 7 to 11 percent in future earnings. The report also explored how school closings have hurt single mothers, who bore the burden of closed schools in the form of less job security and lower wages.
Some top advisers think the White House got into school too late after focusing in the spring on reopening restaurants, bars, and small businesses in every state, when schools should have been their first priority.
Now school reopens have become a major topic of conversation for the President and his aides, often treating the issue as something other than the explosion of the Covid-19 cases, the main driver of officials’ concerns. local.
“The president has said unequivocally that he wants the school to reopen,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a briefing on Thursday. “When it says open, it means open and complete, children can attend every day at their school. Science shouldn’t get in the way of this. “
McEnany said that recent studies show that children have a lower risk of becoming seriously ill from Covid-19 compared to seasonal flu. Other health experts have publicly warned that no one fully understands the risk the virus poses to children, as schools and day camps have been largely closed since March, when the pandemic was in its infancy in the US. USA
While the debate continues, an economic lifeline for millions of families will remain at stake in the coming days, with an increase in unemployment insurance benefits that will expire in less than 10 days.
Some of Trump’s outside economic advisers, such as Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation, have urged the White House to end the current practice of giving the unemployed Americans an additional $ 600 a week in unemployment benefits in addition to state aid. regulate unemployment, seeing it as a disincentive to an economic rebound.
“You have to get the $ 600 a week off the table and go back to the traditional unemployment system,” said Moore, who sent a memo to the White House this week describing this advice. “You can’t keep paying people not to work.”
“The fate of the president’s reelection depends on doing this well and setting the stage for a strong recovery in the fall,” added Moore. “He will be reelected if the economy is recovering at a good rate, but that is not certain at the moment.”
Trump in recent weeks has publicly issued ideas including more direct payments to taxpayers, liability protections for workers and businesses, infrastructure spending, and specific state and local aid for Covid-19 response efforts. The White House has said it hopes that tens of billions of dollars will be included in the next coronavirus aid package to ensure teachers can return to work safely and that students can return to school.
“We continue to see the challenges millions of Americans face in shutting down the largest economy in our history, but as the country opens, the Trump Administration will prioritize pro-growth policies and incentives that encourage companies to reopen and move forward. Towards a Secure Job Recovery: Moving American Workers from Unemployment Benefits to Wage Increases, “said Judd Deere, White House deputy press secretary.” The president built the most inclusive economy in our history with low taxes, deregulation, reciprocal trade and energy independence, which has given us a solid foundation for this transition to greatness, and will do so again. ”
Economic officials within the administration are proud of the work they did on the CARES Act, a widely credited aid package, along with extensive Federal Reserve measures, to prevent an economic collapse when closings began in March. The U.S. unemployment rate did not rise as high as some top officials had expected, and many assistants from across the administration are frustrated that health officials have not acted as efficiently to control Covid-19, seeing the two as separate problems on different paths.
Other aides inside the White House say the fate of the economy is closely intertwined with how well the United States is handling the virus. To think otherwise is to ignore a global pandemic, these aides say, and handing too much responsibility to states to solve it on their own will not work.
Trump’s political advisers still see the economy as the best message for the president this fall, as, prior to the virus, he presided over a historically low unemployment rate. They plan to build the campaign around that idea as often as possible to contrast with Biden’s economic proposals.
“There is a greater chance of recovery with Trump than with Biden,” said the Republican close to the campaign. “That message needs to be reinforced every day to make it the # 1 thing on people’s minds. Instinctively, people don’t blame him for the economic crisis. They blame the virus. “
