ウィスパリング同時通訳研究会コミュのJoe Biden Roundtable on Economic Impact of COVID-19

Joe Biden: (02:45)
When I think about the economy, I don’t think about the gross domestic product or the state of the stock market, I think about families like yours, families like mine, families like I grew up in, where my dad, when he lost his job when I was a kid in Scranton, Pennsylvania, when coal died, he was not a coal miner, but he worked there, and when the economy collapsed we moved down to a little steel town called … About … [inaudible 00:03:16]
(03:17)
My dad [inaudible 00:03:19] Me and my siblings, I was the oldest, I probably the only one that really fully understood it early on, was he said, “Joey, a job’s about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about your place in the community. It’s about being able to look your kids, your family, your friends in the eye and say, ‘I think everything’s going to be okay.'” And he also used to say, “Joey, I don’t expect the government to solve my problems, but I at least expect them to understand my problems, so they understand what it is so I know they have a way of at least they’re working on what I’m concerned about.”
(03:52)
So that’s what I want to hear from you all today, about the challenges you individually are experiencing. I know you’re all experiencing the effect of one great problem, and that is the economic downturn in large part because of COVID, and the failure of some of our friends in Congress to move forward on the kind of economic package that was passed and needed to help people. But the challenges you’ve experienced affects everybody the same but slightly differently. And I want to hear, to the extent you’re willing to be straightforward with me, and tell me about what your real, deep concerns are, I’d like to hear it. It would help me inform my policy.
(04:37)
And I’ve been doing this on a regular basis, meeting with people who are victims of this economic downturn through no fault of their own, have done everything, worked like heck their whole lives, and find themselves in a real dilemma right now. So with that, why don’t I, as my mother used to say, “Hush up, Joey,” and hear from you all. And then maybe I could, as you’re talking, after you finish, maybe ask you some questions. And you all can ask me questions as well in the process here, okay?
(05:09)
But let’s just have a candid talk, because I got involved in public life way back when I was a kid because of civil rights and because of ordinary working people and middle class people who really built this country. The very wealthy, they’re a lot of good people, but they don’t need my help. But families I came from need my help, and just need a shot, just a chance, just a chance to make it. When they’ve had that chance, they’ve never let the country down.
(05:41)
Having said all that, why don’t I be quiet, and I’ll let you start, Cecilia, you tell me who’s talking first, and we’ll go from there, okay?

Cecilia Munoz: (05:49)
Thank you so much. We’re going to go first to Chicago, to you, Lorie Alexander. You’ve worked as a crossing guard. I understand you never missed a day until this year. Can you tell us a little bit about how this is affecting you?

Lorie Alexander: (05:59)
Yes, I wanted to say thank you so much for this opportunity, President-Elect, and congratulations on your win. I’ve been working for the city in Chicago for 18 years on and off. The city had so many different issues [inaudible 00:06:18] when I first came into the department. However, COVID took a tremendous strain where I am now unemployed, and I am getting unemployment, and that be difficult during the time of unemployment from the beginning of March. The changes of the dollar amount that they’re getting, you can’t even feed your family, and I just thank god that I don’t have a family right now, my children are grown, they’re adults, and they’re able to [inaudible 00:06:46] for themselves. But unfortunately, as a mom, you want to be able to take care of your children when they call you and say, “Mom, I need something.” I can’t even do that for them.
(06:56)
It’s just been such a pleasure to have worked with Local 73, the union, because they have been helping me and guiding me through a lot of the same things that I needed throughout this whole pandemic. I thank god for the organizations in my community and neighborhood, because I’ve been a leader, and also in my community I try to work with seniors, and been working with seniors for years, and I wasn’t even able to help a lot of seniors this year, to be honest with you.
(07:21)
That’s just been such a turmoil, but I do thank god I have the opportunity to speak about it for other people who are unable to speak for themselves right now. My job right now, because it’s on a scale where I don’t know if I’m going to get to go back to work, my biggest concern is probably my pension. If I choose to retire, or even if I’m still going to be able to work, and if I do go back to work, would I even be safe? It’s just so many unanswered questions, even just taking, going to get tested and taking the virus, I mean taking the virus if they got it, if it work, and what’s the side effects to the virus if you already have underlying health issues.
(08:05)
It’s just so many unanswered questions, and it brings a lot of confusion. I do pray that we can get some type of stimulus package where we, again, can take care of some of our needs and our family, where we can meet some criteria, things that we can take care of far as food and shelter and clothing. I know when I got my stimulus before that health, believe it or not, health is so caught up in dying and bills, it really didn’t do much for me. It went basically to my veterinary bill for my dog and my cat, and I’m not ashamed to say that.
(08:38)
But I do pray that you hear our voices, and together, people, we let everybody know what’s going on, and together we can work it out, and hopefully we’ll come up with plenty of solutions thank you.

Joe Biden: (08:50)
Thank you, Lorie. I’ll come back, ask some questions if I may, but I’ll wait until we get through it all.

Cecilia Munoz: (08:59)
Thank you. Next we’re going to Detroit to Karen Coffey. You work at Comerica Stadium. That’s my hometown. Thank you for being here. Can you tell us a little bit about how the crisis is affecting you?

Karen Coffey: (09:10)
Yes, thank you so much for having me, and thank you so much for the platform. Hello, President-Elect Joe Biden. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it, for you sitting down and listening to our concerns today. Because we do have a lot of concerns, Mr. Biden. It’s been rough. I mean, my last day of work was March the 8th when everything shut down. I’ve been an employee at LCA Joe Louis, Joe Louis’s, LCA is the new Joe Louis Arena, and Comerica Park for 30 years. I’ve been with my union, Unite Here, they’ve helped us tremendously through this by giving us all type of information and staying by us.
(10:06)
The unemployment helps so much, when we had the extra money. But once the extra money left, it’s downhill from there. It’s hard trying to keep up with your bills, trying to pay … Not only me, all of us. This is all servers, all of these stadium workers, and the hospitality workers. We are really suffering. And it hurts us when we hear people that don’t have any issues, politicians that are doing just fine, when they say, “Oh, they don’t need that extra money, they’re just lazy. They need to get a job.” There is nowhere to go to get a job.
(10:50)
But we would be working. We don’t want to be sitting here, home, on unemployment. We want to be working. We want to be able to go back to our old jobs that we had, that we want to make sure that they’re safe for all the employees to come back. We want to make sure that the companies cannot go out and hire new employees once we are able to go back to work. We were right in the middle of contracts. And we’re just hoping that they don’t try and take our jobs away from us, that we’ve been there for so many years, and we’ve been so dedicated to them. Our health insurance. Now we don’t have health insurance. We paid for, a lot of us pay for our own health insurance because the companies don’t pay for that. But now we can’t even afford to pay our health insurance because we’re not getting the money. I don’t even know what to say. We feel hopeless. That’s how we feel. We feel like there’s … Like we don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring, where there is any help going to come from. And it’s just an everyday struggle for us.
(12:07)
So we’re hoping that we can get some help. Our health insurance is gone, our jobs are basically gone, and we need job security. We need the companies to know that they can’t give our jobs to somebody else once this is over, that we can come back. We want to be there. We want to pick right back up our lives and move on. I mean, my mother is here with me. It’s just been mentally straining, and draining, to have to worry about … She’s elderly. So I worry about her. Then I have to worry about my own self trying to stay healthy without insurance so I can take care of my mother. It’s bad. And we need help.
(12:52)
We need help with unemployment, we need help with our health insurance, and we need to know that our jobs will be there once it is safe for us to go back. And I thank you for this time, and this platform, for you listening to our concerns, and hopefully we can come to some type of help, something, that can get us through this. And I thank you.

Joe Biden: (13:23)
Karen, can I ask you a question before we go on? Do you have reason to believe that if the industry comes back, that is your employers are able to open up again and have full service again, that they’re not going to bring back their other employees? Do you have reason to believe that?

Karen Coffey: (13:47)
Well, I fear that. I really do. I fear that from the company that I work for. I mean, our union is trying to stand behind us and trying to make sure that we’re okay here. But we don’t know. We have not heard one thing from then since they closed down, since we shut down. Not one reach out, not one email. Nothing to say, “We will welcome you back.” So we don’t know. We really don’t know. None of us.

Joe Biden: (14:18)Well, you ought to talk to your union. I think your union probably does know that they’re likely-

Karen Coffey: (14:24)No, I am part of the union. Our company will not reach back out to us.
Joe Biden: (14:29)Well my … Okay.
Karen Coffey: (14:31)It’s ghosts. They’re ghosts.
Joe Biden: (14:33)Well, I think it’s going to be hard for them to not hire back the existing workforce if they’re able to hire people back. But that’s a different, I’ll look into that. But I have other questions later. Thank you.
Karen Coffey: (14:46)Thank you. Thank you.
Cecilia Munoz: (14:48)Thank you so much, Karen.
Karen Coffey: (14:49)Thank you.

Cecilia Munoz: (14:50)
So we’re going to Milwaukee next. Dan Jacobs, you’re a small business owner. You own restaurants. And this is out of, the crisis has had an effect on you, on the people who work for you. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Dan Jacobs: (15:03)
Absolutely. Thank you, President-Elect Biden, and your staff for taking the time today to talk to American workers and me, the lone small business owner. Successful small business owners have one thing in common, and that’s our willingness to do whatever it takes. This keeps us not very far removed from the other people on this call. But let me share with you what I’m going through right now.
(15:25)
My name is Dan Jacobs, and I am a member of the IRC, which is the Independent Restaurant Coalition, HUA, Hospitality United Associations, and a cofounder of MIRC, Milwaukee’s Independent Restaurant Coalition. These organizations did not exist pre-COVID, but they came together in response to the pandemic to help navigate and find the best possible solutions to keeping our vibrant restaurant and bar communities together, and to help find a solution to the economic fallout of COVID-19.
(15:54)
My partner, Dan Van Wright and I, we own and operate the JVR Hospitality Group here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On March 1st, our group consisted of 90 plus …
(16:03)
… Johnson. On March 1st, our group consisted of 90 plus employees with 80% of them being full time. Three restaurants, a bakery, a restaurant consulting out of our organization, and a Dandan kiosk in the Fiserv Forum where the Milwaukee Bucks play. Today, due to COVID, we’ve had to reduce our staff to 26 employees with only 12 of them being full-time. We’re left with two restaurants, Dandan and EsterEv, having been forced to permanently closed the bakery, Batches, and our French restaurant Fauntleroy because of a 91% revenue loss. Since June 1st, here at Dandan and EsterEv, we lost another $700,000 worth of revenue. Unfortunately, this story isn’t unique, not among the 500,000 plus independent restaurants or the countless small businesses across the country. I worry about our future as a company, but I’m mostly worried about the future of our team, as well as the workers of our industry and small businesses nationwide, who are furloughed right now and whose UI benefits are set to run out or already have.
(16:59)
Our business initially missed out on the first round of PPP. But in the end, we did receive a PPP and an EIDL loan in May and in June. While these two programs helped, they just act as a bandaid to slow losses and furloughs. These programs are not answers to our deepening small business economic problems. For restaurants specifically, the PPP program falls far short. Only 8% of the businesses that receive PPP loans were restaurants. However, our industry was the hardest hit, mainly because restaurant’s first or second largest expenses are food and beverage costs. These are not eligible as grant expenses. Our company personally exhausted our PPP loan in October. Patios? It’s winter here in Milwaukee, which I’m sure you know about Scranton winters. Pretty much the same.
(17:54)
Add that to the exploding COVID positivity rate, that’s come to form a perfect storm of loss of revenue for businesses. Then on top of that, the loss of jobs from the American workforce that were propped up by those PPP loans. As winter approached, we spent $20,000 to make our restaurant as safe as possible for our team and for our guests. But that money just seems like a waste now as it’s just not safe to be indoors with people that aren’t in your bubble. We are worse off right now than we were in March. At least in March, there was hope and there was a feeling that we were all in this together. Now we look toward a long winter that’s here, knocking on the door, with a feeling of true desperation. Last month alone, my company lost $23,000. At this rate, we will make our obligations having to continue to get real scrappy, real inventive through March or April.
(18:43)
But after that, our continued operation is not guaranteed or even possible without some help. This is the big one. Mr. President-Elect, if there’s one point that I hope that you take away from today, it’s that we as small business owners, like our workforce, can not have that help come in the form of taking on more debt. We need grant help and we need that grant help now. Luckily there’re programs out there like the Restaurant Act, which has bipartisan support in the Senate, including co-sponsored by your Vice President-Elect, Kamala Harris and has passed the House of Representatives. The Restaurant Act would immediately help independent restaurants across the country. Independent restaurants account for 11 plus million workers, plus another 6 million workers just outside our bubble. Think about bakers, fishermen, farmers, forgers. These are the people that work outside of us. Restaurant and bars are a lot of the time people’s first and last jobs in our workforce.
(19:36)
So many people have passed through our industry, including former presidents like Abraham Lincoln, who was a bartender in Illinois. I love that story. I want the opportunity to bring my bartenders back and give them the tools to be their best selves because who knows, the next one could be the next Joe Biden. In Wisconsin, the Restaurant Act would be absolutely huge. We understand the necessity to shut down now and stay safe right now for us to get through this winter with very minimum loss of life. But the post vaccine world is where our economy needs us most. The Restaurant Act would allow us to bridge to a post vaccine world where we could get our staff back to work, to galvanize Wisconsin tourism industry, encouraging travelers to eat in Wisconsin’s establishments, visit our tourist attractions, go to our retail shops, and take in a show at maybe one of our local independent concert event venues, which selfishly I miss the most. The Restaurant Act would allow independent restaurants to continue to be the gateway to cultures and neighborhoods throughout our country. It will allow us to be the great engine of our economy.
(20:44)
90 cents of every dollar that comes into a restaurant goes right back out the door. It’s fueling economic ecosystem of bankers, farmers, butchers, foragers, all the way to electricians and carpenters, to that Cisco truck driver transporting food across the country, and then all of the things he or she touches along the way.
(21:04)
Finally, Mr. President-Elect, small business owners are some of the most creative people out here. We have to constantly pivot and re-pivot, adapting to an ever-changing disease that we didn’t bring on. As an industry, restaurant and bars have never asked for a handout. We are always the companies that charity organizations come to for donations first. Whether it’s feeding the hungry or just donating our time and energy to causes diverse and best, we answer that call because it’s simply the right thing to do. For most of us, all we know is hospitality. Hospitality is defined as the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, and strangers.
(21:45)
We do this because we love taking care of people. All I’m asking is that you give us the tools to succeed, to get back to what we do best, which is hospitality. We just want to reach to the crazy end of this chapter of American history together. I think you said something, give me the ability to tell our staffs that everything is going to be okay, just like somebody gave you or your father the ability to say that. I want to be able to do that for my staff. Thanks again for your time and for hearing me today.
Joe Biden: (22:14)Thank you, Dan.