Pandemic Round Up

• Weekly unemployment claims totaled 2.1 million last week, bringing total claims to over 40 million. (CNBC)
• Summer jobs for teens are hard to find this year. (WSJ) (For reference, here is what the job market looked like for teens last summer: unemployment stood at a 50-year low. WSJ)
• Amazon is looking to make 125,000 of the jobs it added to deal with the pandemic permanent hires. (TechCrunch)
• USA Today sums up the permanent changes in our economy as we learn to live with this virus. One article deals with individual adjustments. A second article discusses impacts on commercial real estate.
• Money Magazine offers advice on how to stretch your money is unemployed.
• According to BankRate, people are using their retirement savings to get through this slump.
• A study by Kasasa looks at how people are spending their stimulus money. The top three are monthly bills, savings, and daily needs.
• One pandemic winner is Papa John’s. Want to guess their fasted growing market? The answer might surprise you. (CNBC)

Investing

• U.S. Corporate bond sales topped $1Trillion, six months sooner than in 2019 and the fastest pace ever. (Markets Insider)
• Last week I posted a Financial Times/Financial Post article on sports gamblers turning to the U.S. stock market for kicks. But they are not the only ones. Individuals, especially Gen Z, are turning to the stock market, and many used their stimulus checks to fund this new activity. (Barrons-subscription, but “X” out of the subscription box and you should be able to read this article.) 

Budgeting

• What are the nine most common recurring monthly expenses, and how much do U.S. Households pay for them? (Business Wire)

Higher Education

• California’s decision to drop the SAT/ACT has had enough time to sink in and experts are weighing in. (Inside Higher Education 1)
• Institutions scrambled to make the move to online instruction for the spring semester. As they face the potential for at least some, if not all, instruction remaining online, they are looking to do a better job of it. (Inside Higher Education 2)
  

Financial Pitfalls

• College students are the target of many Covid-19 scams. The FTC issued a warning about them.

Miscellaneous

• Wharton Business Daily interviews Shiri Melumad about why people share so much information on their smartphones. Listen or read the transcript care of Knowledge@Wharton.
• Do you think millennials are the unluckiest generation in U.S. History? (WaPo)

About the Author