Half a Year Into the Pandemic Recession, Virginia’s Recovery Looks Anything But V-Shaped

From the Democratic Party of Virginia:

Half a Year into the Pandemic Recession, Virginia’s recovery looks anything but V-Shaped

RICHMOND – Half a year since the start of Trump’s recession following his incompetent COVID-19 response, Virginia’s economy has yet to recover. 3,300 Virginians are dead, hundreds of thousands are still out of work, and the only plan Trump has is to take away health care from Virginians in a case the Supreme Court will hear a week after the election to strike down the Affordable Care Act. 

“Virginians know that the only real plan Donald Trump has is to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which he’ll attempt to do again in the Supreme Court a week after the election,” said Hannah Muldavin, Press Secretary for the Democratic Party of Virginia. “But unlike Donald Trump, Virginians across the Commonwealth have a plan. Virginians have been voting early in record numbers and using IWillVote.com/VA to make a plan to cast their ballots for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”

Trump’s Lies About Virginia’s Recovery

TRUMP CLAIM: Trump said he would be the “greatest jobs president that God ever created” and told Virginians that “We built the greatest economy in the history of the world, and now we’re quickly doing it again.” [Trump Campaign Rally, Newport News, VA, 9/25/2020]

REALITY: Donald Trump is the worst jobs president in modern history, and his policies have hurt Virginia’s economy.

• Nearly 270,000 Virginians are still out of work in Trump’s COVID economy.
• Nationwide, 5 million more Americans are unemployed than when Trump took office.
• The unemployment rate is the highest going into an election year and he is the first president to oversee a period of net job loss in his first four years since WWII.
• Job growth was slower in Trump’s first three years than it was under the economy he inherited from President Obama.
• Trump’s trade wars have cost Virginia’s farmers and exporters, who saw exports to China fall nearly $500 million from 2016 to 2018.

TRUMP: “We’re going to have that great health care program. But we’re going to take care of everyone, we’re going to take care of people. And people are going to pay much less and get it so good.” [Trump Campaign Rally, Richmond VA, 10/14/15]

REALITY: Donald Trump has spent the last four years determined to destroy Virginian’s health care, and just one week after the election the Supreme Court will hear a lawsuit to strike down the Affordable Care Act. 

• If Trump is successful, 642,000 Virginians could lose their health coverage, nearly doubling the state’s number of uninsured residents. Without the ACA’s protections, as many as 3.5 million Virginians with preexisting conditions could have been denied coverage or charged higher rates.
• Additionally, nearly 166,000 Virginians have survived coronavirus — which would likely also be treated as a pre-existing condition if the ACA is eliminated.
• An additional 470,000 Virginians who are enrolled in the Commonwealth’s Medicaid expansion would likely lose their health care coverage if Trump succeeds in getting rid of the ACA.
• Drug prices have continued to increase during Trump’s Presidency, despite his claims that they have gone down.
• If the Trump-GOP lawsuit is successful in striking down the ACA, 110,000 Virginia seniors are at risk of having to pay more for prescription drugs because the Medicare “donut hole” will be reopened.
• Without the ACA, Medicare beneficiaries in Virginia would pay more for preventative care, like wellness visits and diabetes checks.

TRUMP CLAIM: “So I think, when you ask how did we do — and I have to say it because the news is so fake and so corrupt — I think we did a spectacular job [on COVID].” [White House Press Briefing, April 30, 2020]

REALITY: Even though he knew how dangerous the virus was in February, Trump’s incompetant mishandling of COVID has been a disaster for Virginia, leading to over 3,300 dead, the largest recession since the Great Depression, and no plan for how to get us out of this mess.

• We have lost over 215,000 Americans and 3,300 Virginians to the COVID-19 virus.
• Despite six months going by since the first reported case in America, the virus is not under control — the Virginia Department of Health said that COVID-19 cases are continuing to spike in Virginia. 
• As many as 482,000 Virginians were unemployed at the peak of the COVID recession, and unemployment had more than tripled since the start of the year. Trump’s COVID economy has become the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.