Journalist Zaid Jilani said Monday that Europe has managed to avoid more layoffs during the coronavirus pandemic than the U.S. because of its countries’ nearly universal subsidizing programs.
Jilani told Hill.TV that most of the countries that are a part of the European Union didn’t experience “any real spike” in unemployment rates, contrasting to the U.S., although European countries typically have higher unemployment rates than the U.S.
Jilani attributed the lack of spike to the European nations’ decisions to subsidize payroll for businesses “across the board.”
“So it’s very different to us … we kind of set up a wait line like outside the DMV and some people got in. Some people didn’t,” he said, referring to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) that provided money to small businesses if they retained their employees.
“But that’s not the approach they took overseas and I think it worked out much better for them,” he added.
He pointed to the stimulus checks as the “single most successful part” of the CARES Act saying it “probably did the most to lower the official poverty rate.”
“I think that was probably the model of what should have been done with the rest of the economy,” he said.
He added the approach was “more similar” to what European countries did without “hoops” to “jump through” or caps on the amount of money available.
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