Good morning,

Today’s Texas Minute is devoted to the tangible costs of the government-ordered shutdown of the economy.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Monday, April 27, 2020
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• Texas’ unemployment claims continue skyrocketing. Here’s the Texas Workforce Commission’s per week unemployment claim numbers.

  (Week Ending : New Claims)
  Feb. 22 : 7,053
  Feb. 29 : 7,393
  March 7 : 6,368
  March 14 : 16,176
  March 21 : 158,364
  March 28 : 276,185
  April 4 : 313,832
  April 11 : 273,567
  April 18 : 325,100
  April 25 : 365,700
     

• In all, that’s 1.7 million unemployment claims the Texas Work Force Commission attributes to the government’s reaction to the coronavirus pandemic.(Nationally, the government shutdowns have forced some 26 million Americans to file for unemployment in just five weeks.)
      
• This means more than 10 percent of the state’s working age adults are now unemployed. The most recent time unemployment even approached these levels was in October 1986, when it hit 9 percent.
      
• Previous cycles of unemployment came strictly through economic cycles; this time, it has been government ordering businesses to close their doors. The employees of small businesses have learned – probably to their shock – that local and state politicians did not consider their work to be “essential.” (Even if essential to them and the customers!)
      
• For many businesses, this represents a form of taking. Through no fault of their own, and independent of their ability to mitigate risks to employees or customers, the government has arbitrarily denied business owners’ the right to operate for an extreme period of time.
      
• For example... Dallas stylist and the owner of Salon À la Mode, Shelley Luther, this weekend decided to reopen her business, and was immediately sent a “cease and desist” letter from County Judge Clay Jenkins. In a commentary, attorney Warren Norred asks Texans to support small business owners like her who are able and willing to safely serve their customers and keep employees on the payroll.
     
• Shuttering the economy has also brought travel to a halt, therefore the demand for oil and gas has plummeted – along with the price. That, in turn, has led to unemployment in the oil patch. While few might work up much sorrow for multinational executives at publicly traded oil companies, the water truck drivers, technicians, carpenters, welders, pipelayers, and others are finding themselves unemployed.
          
• Various reports peg the drop-off in travel at 95 percent, forcing major layoffs in the hotel and airline industries. Texas-based American Airlines has furloughed or laid off thousands of employees. Southwest Airlines’ Gary Kelly recently said, “If things don't improve dramatically over the May, June, July time periods, we'll have to prepare ourselves to be a dramatically smaller airline.”
      
• Earlier this month, Scientific American reported on the likely increase in suicides arising from depression triggered by isolation or unemployment. This was brought into focus last week by Pastor Steve Riggle and State Rep. Steve Toth who both highlighted the number of suicides in their home county outpacing the number of coronavirus deaths.
      
• As Jonathan Ashbach, writing at The Federalist, puts it: “Reasonable precautions make sense. But to cease living for fear or guilt over inevitable deaths is wrong. No one would be better off if we all made ourselves miserable ‘for others.’ And none of us has a right to impose massive burdens on others for the sake of preventing a small risk of death to ourselves.” 

• Responding to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Tom Oliverson –a member of the Texas House from Houston – wrote on Saturday: “As the rates of asymptomatic infection climb higher and higher, realize that mortality is plummeting like a rock. Isolate high risk groups, everyone else can go back to work.” 
       
• State Sen. Angela Paxton (R-Plano) is urging Abbott to “immediately open the marketplace … based on compliance, rather than a designation of essential or non-essential.” Erin Anderson has the details.
      
• Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is expected to begin revealing later today the plan crafted by his appointed “strike force” to reopen the economy he shuttered.
     
• In a round of media interviews last week, Gov. Abbott hinted that reopening some of Texas’ retail and personal service businesses (barbershops and the like) might not happen until “early next month.”
      
• As Matt Stringer reports, the mayors of West Texas’ seven largest cities sent the governor a letter detailing their plan for reopening their region. It was signed by the mayors of Big Spring, Lubbock, San Angelo, Odessa, Amarillo, Midland, and Abilene.
      
• “Every business that is operating at low or mitigating risk should be operating,” their letter reads. “Every business that can mitigate risk should be allowed to operate as a low-risk business.”
      
• The DFW-area City of Colleyville didn’t wait for anyone’s permission to reopen; they simply did so this past weekend. By all accounts, the city’s residents and visitors operated in responsible ways – adhering to the spirit of the CDC’s guidelines while getting back to a version of normalcy.
       
• Apparently Texans know how to take care of themselves, their families, and neighbors.​

• Join me in wishing a (belated) happy Sunday birthday to our general counsel, Tony McDonald!