Some Upward Trends

In general, I try not to go super in-depth in these blogs at any time, and that is more due to attention restraints than anything else. I mean, those who care to get into the weeds into issues such as taxes know where to find that information. I instead want to bring some general knowledge to a larger number of people (and hopefully stay easy to follow at the same time because of it).

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, much of my writing has become even more general, as everything felt like it was changing all the time. This made any advice or news short-lived, so I instead sought to provide information that could be more of an anchor in a time where nothing was steady.

Today I will have just a bit more of that depth, but it is coming in the form of good news. First, there was a recent summit held by ADP to look into some recent job research. The overarching take was that the PPP program did help return some people to the workforce and it looks like that will continue throughout the summer. Getting back to where we were before all this madness will take longer, but this does offer hope that we are not just spiraling into the abyss. And for those who do like to get even deeper into the numbers, you can read more about this here.

This good news seems to largely be coming across the board, too, as Paychex released numbers last week that said small businesses essentially held steady when it comes to number of jobs, but saw an uptick in hours worked. Even something like that, which is neither grand nor wonderful news, is still good news, as any increase in the amount of the hours worked is a positive. Again, for you deep number crunchers, click here for more.

Also last week came an extension of the PPP program in general. The deadline for the program was to have come last week, but both houses of Congress passed a five-week extension that the president signed, so the program will now remain open for applications until August 8. It is able to keep going because all of the money allocated for the program has not yet been doled out. That can even be seen as the best news of all after how quickly the first round of funding was divvied up, leaving many to feel like they missed out.

So yes, there may not be much in this blog that is something you can think about in your own life and you may not be interested in more than the headlines, but hopefully you can forgive me good news blather for a week.

Warmly,

Josh Bousquet
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