US 2020 Elections : candidates key issues | jobs and Economy current affairs 2020 for css pcs pms upsc exams

US 2020 Elections: candidates key issues jobs and Economy current affairs 2020 for CSS pcs PMS UPSC exams

USA General Elections and Economic issues

The economic factors are always a huge component in the presidential elections, and we've seen a dramatic change now with COVID 2020 in March. 

So it looked like the incumbent, Trump, was doing quite well on the economic side. He could claim that he had the lowest unemployment rate, the longest period of expansion. And now, through COVID things change dramatically. 

So voters are sensitive to economic conditions, although other things play a role too. What we've seen actually from the polls—the the the president is doing...has lost ground certainly in swing states that are certainly negatively affected by the COVID shock. 

We have tremendous structural changes that are going on through COVID. We have seen an acceleration of trends of technological change—in terms of moving from malls, for instance, have been dying out and has been substituted through the internet, internet purchases, and through the rise of the digital economy. And so those structural changes also affected a lot of low-income workers quite a bit and they're finding that now they're looking for new and new aspects. 

And what we need from the new administration— those shocks that COVID has presented to the world economy in terms of accelerating the trends to the digital economy towards also now working from home, jobs have been created in the digital sector and data analytics but other sectors, traditional sectors especially in the service industries, have been lost. And so what we need in the new administration—how to deal with these long-term aspects, besides the short-term stimulus discussion that one has heard in the press. If you don't have a job, that trumps your considerations so other issues like social justice and so are less of a concern than if you really can not make ends meet. 

US 2020 Elections key issues like jobs and economy are the most discussed topics nowadays.

Well, it's almost always the economy in the United States. It's hard for me to remember an election that wasn't really about the economy. Perhaps 2004 was a bit about Iraq and terrorism and not just about the economy. 

Usually in the United States, note James Carvell, Bill Clinton's campaign manager was famous for having a sign up in the war room saying "It's the economy, stupid". I think this election is that way, too. We haven't recovered fully from the 2008 economic downturn. 

Unemployment is still much higher than anyone would like it to be, in the high seven percent, near eight percent, so people are worried. People are worried about their jobs. People are worried about the lives their children are going to lead. There's a worry about the globalization of the economy, of the thought that jobs are "being shipped overseas", whether that is true or not. So that is a concern of voters. But mostly it is about the economy and it's about jobs. 

Now in that context, I think one of the most important issues, at least in Ohio, in this election will be automobile jobs and the fact that General Motors almost went out of business back in 2009. They did go through a bankruptcy, but it was a very different bankruptcy than they would have gone through if the federal government had not bailed out General Motors, which it does beginning with George W. Bush. actually, before he leaves the white house and continues by Barack Obama. And this presidential election will be interesting because Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, opposed the auto bailout, and that may play very poorly for him in the swing state of Ohio.