As Trump Moves On From Ongoing Crisis, Mainers Still Struggling
A new report released this week on gross domestic product (GDP) by state in the first quarter of 2020 revealed the impact of Donald Trump’s slow, ineffective pandemic response on the health of Maine's economy. The report, from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, shows that Maine’s GDP contracted at a 6.3% rate, along with decreases in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
While Trump continues to downplay the threat of the coronavirus, Maine’s economy faces catastrophic job losses. Between February and May, Maine lost more than 90,000 jobs. Nationally, more than one in six workers are unemployed, underemployed, or no longer looking for work.
But the economic fallout didn’t have to be this bad. Trump failed to take the coronavirus seriously from the beginning, ignored warnings, failed to implement a national testing strategy, and publicly downplayed the crisis. Now, while Mainers still struggle to deal with the impact of the virus, Trump has all but moved on from the most significant public health crisis in a century, leaving states to pick up the pieces.
“Trump’s slow, ineffective pandemic response is directly responsible for catastrophic job losses here in Maine and across the country,” said Kathleen Marra, Chair of the Maine Democratic Party. “A president with empathy and experience would be working around the clock to control the virus and help Americans get back to work. Instead, Trump continues to downplay the virus, making the economic crisis worse than it needs to be.”
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