The New York Times - USA (2020-08-07)

FRIDAY, AUGUST 7, 2020 B1

N

TECH ECONOMY MEDIA FINANCE

3 TARIFFS

A month after the start of a

new trade deal, President

Trump reimposes a tariff on

Canadian aluminum.

8 AUTOMOBILES

He was a teenage tinkerer in

his family’s garage. Now he’s

setting the pace for affordable

electric bicycles.

12 SPORTS

A fan in the White House

says he won’t watch if N.B.A.

players kneel. LeBron James

says he doesn’t care.

When the Great Lockdown
started in Michigan, Nick
Gavrilides closed the dining room
of his Soup Spoon Cafe in Lansing,
had some farewell beers with his
workers and set to work on an in-
surance claim.
He had paid for business inter-
ruption insurance, a type of cover-
age that replaces a portion of a
firm’s lost revenue when a disas-
ter forces it to suspend operations,
and was expecting his carrier,
Michigan Insurance Company, to
cover at least some of his losses.
He didn’t get a cent.
“At first I thought, OK, we’re
toast, this is it,” Mr. Gavrilides

said. Then he sued.

Since the pandemic hit the

United States this year, thousands

of business owners like Mr.

Gavrilides have discovered that

the business interruption policies

they bought, and have been pay-

ing thousands of dollars in annual

premiums to sustain, won’t pay

them a thing — just as they are

struggling through the biggest

business interruption in modern

memory.

Now, many of them — from pro-

prietors of gyms and dental prac-

tices to high-profile restaurateurs

including the Chez Panisse owner

Alice Waters, the owner of Cheers

in Boston and even a National

Basketball Association team —

are taking their insurers to court,

hoping to force them to cover

some of the financial carnage. So

far, more than 400 business inter-

ruption lawsuits have been filed,

according to insurance lawyers.

“I think business interruption

claims should be paid when busi-

ness is interrupted,” Mr.

Gavrilides said.

What Is Insurable in a Pandemic?

By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH

Paying just part of

claims could cripple

the insurance sector.

CONTINUED ON PAGE B4

The government reported on

Thursday that nearly 1.2 million

workers filed new claims for state

unemployment benefits last

week. It was the lowest weekly to-

tal since March, but signaled the

continuing damage that the pan-

demic is inflicting on the labor

market.

An additional 656,000 claims

were filed by freelancers, part-

time workers and others who do

not qualify for regular state job-

less aid but are eligible for bene-

fits under a separate federal un-

employment insurance program,

the Labor Department an-

nounced. Unlike the state figures,

that number is not seasonally ad-

justed.

“Over all, the data was mod-

estly better than we expected, a

surprising improvement,” said

Kathy Bostjancic, chief U.S. finan-

cial economist at Oxford Econom-

ics. There were declines across

nearly all the states, even those

where the virus is resurgent.

But jobless claims “remain at

alarmingly high levels,” she said,

and the stubbornly high number

of people collecting unemploy-

ment — estimated by economists

at 30 million — suggests that

“temporary layoffs are becoming

permanent.”

Although the number of new

claims is down from the strato-

spheric levels reached in the early

days of the pandemic, the million-

plus tallies that have continued for

20 straight weeks are very high by

historical standards.

And now that emergency fed-

eral supplemental benefits have

expired, the newest entrants to

join the ranks of unemployed will

not be receiving the extra $600 a

Jobless Numbers Still Top 1 Million

By PATRICIA COHEN

A modest decline, but

continued ‘alarmingly

high’ figures.

CONTINUED ON PAGE B9

The economic damage from the coronavirus

is most visible in areas like Midtown Manhat-

tan, where lunch spots have closed, busi-

nesses have gone dark and once-crowded

sidewalks have emptied.

But some of the worst economic pain lies in

other neighborhoods, in the places where

workers who have endured the broadest job

losses live. In corners of the Bronx, South Los

Angeles or the South Side of Chicago, unem-

ployment is concentrated to a breathtaking

degree. And that means that other problems

still to come — a wave of evictions, deepening

poverty, more childhood hunger — will be ge-

ographically concentrated, too.

Data estimating neighborhood-level unem-

ployment rates suggests that as many as one

in three workers in these areas are jobless,

deeply widening economic disparities within

cities.

In New York City, it’s as if parts of the Bronx

were experiencing the Great Depression

while the Upper East Side faced only modest

drops in employment, according to Yair

Ghitza and Mark Steitz, analysts who have

estimated unemployment at the census tract

level based on national economic statistics

over the last six months.

The federal government doesn’t report un-

employment data down to the neighborhood

level, so the two researchers modeled these

fine-grained statistics in a way that makes

them consistent with state and national sur-

veys. Through June, they found most neigh-

borhoods in the Bronx had unemployment

rates in excess of 20 percent, while most

neighborhoods south of 95th Street in Man-

hattan had rates less than half that.

“What’s salient and visible right now is the

businesses that are shuttered, and the office

buildings that are empty,” said Ingrid Gould

CENSUS TRACT LEVEL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

2% 6% 10% 14% 18% 22% 26% 30%

Source: Analysis of government data from Yair Ghitza and Mark Steitz THE NEW YORK TIMES

New York area

Chicago

February 2020 June 2020

February 2020 June 2020

Lake

Michigan

Lake

Michigan

MANHATTAN

Newark Newark

BROOKLYN

NORTH SIDE NORTH SIDE

SOUTH SIDE SOUTH SIDE

QUEENS

BRONX

STATEN ISLAND

MANHATTAN

BROOKLYN

QUEENS

BRONX

STATEN ISLAND

4 MILES 4 MILES

6 MILES 6 MILES

The Beleaguered Neighborhoods

Where Workers Have No Work

By EMILY BADGER

and QUOCTRUNG BUI

CONTINUED ON PAGE B9