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    How Asia, Once a Vaccination Laggard, Is Revving Up Inoculations

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    Several countries are now on track to surpass the United States in fully vaccinating their populations, lifting hopes of a more permanent return to normality.SINGAPORE — As the United States and Europe ramped up their Covid-19 vaccination programs, the Asia-Pacific region, once lauded for its pandemic response, struggled to get them off the ground. Now, many of those laggards are speeding ahead, lifting hopes of a return to normality in nations resigned to repeated lockdowns and onerous restrictions.The turnabout is as much a testament to the region’s success in securing supplies and working out the kinks in their programs as it is to vaccine hesitancy and political opposition in the United States.South Korea, Japan and Malaysia have even pulled ahead of the United States in the number of vaccine doses administered per 100 people — a pace that seemed unthinkable in the spring. Several have surpassed the United States in fully vaccinating their populations or are on track to do so, limiting the perniciousness of the Delta variant of the coronavirus.In South Korea, the authorities said vaccines had helped keep most people out of the hospital. About 0.6 percent of fully vaccinated people who contracted Covid had severe illness and about 0.1 percent died, according to data collected by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency from May to August.In Japan, serious cases have fallen by half over the last month, to a little over 1,000 a day. Hospitalizations have plummeted from a high of just over 230,000 in late August to around 31,000 on Tuesday.“It’s almost like the tortoise and the hare,” said Jerome Kim, director general of the International Vaccine Institute, a nonprofit organization based in Seoul and focused on vaccine research for the developing world. “Asia was always going to use vaccines when they became available.”Pfizer vaccines arriving in South Korea in July. When the country opened vaccinations to people in their 50s, roughly 10 million simultaneously logged on to a government website to sign up for shots.Ahn Young-Joon/Associated PressRisks remain for the region. Most of the countries do not manufacture their own vaccines and could face supply problems if their governments approve boosters.In Southeast Asia, the rollout has been slow and uneven, dragging down economic prospects there. The Asian Development Bank recently lowered its 2021 growth outlook for developing Asia to 7.1 percent from 7.3 percent, in part over vaccination issues.But for much of the region, the shift has been striking, success that is rooted in its different worldviews and governance structures.In a contrast with the United States, vaccines were never a polarizing issue in Asia-Pacific.Although each country has had to contend with its own anti-vaccine movements, they have been relatively small. They have never benefited from an ecosystem — sympathetic media, advocacy groups and politicians — that has allowed misinformation to influence the populace.Overall, most Asians have trusted their governments to do the right thing, and they were willing to put the needs of the community over their individual freedoms.Reuben Ng, an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy who has studied vaccine hesitancy globally for the past decade, said that pre-Covid, the discussion around immunization had always been mixed in Asia because of some skepticism about the safety.But Mr. Ng and his team, who have been analyzing media reports, have found that the region now holds mostly positive views on vaccines.An overcrowded hospital in Surabaya, Indonesia, in July, when the country was dealing with a sudden increase in Covid cases.Trisnadi/Associated PressThere is widespread belief in Asia that vaccines are the only way out of the pandemic. This month, when a vaccination center in Tokyo offered 200 walk-in shots for young people, hopefuls queued from the early morning hours, and the line extended for blocks.In South Korea, when the authorities opened vaccinations to people in their 50s, roughly 10 million simultaneously logged on to a government website to sign up for shots. The system, which was designed to process up to 300,000 requests at a time, temporarily crashed.People in poorer nations whose lives were upended by extended lockdowns felt they had no choice but to get vaccinated. Indonesia and the Philippines are home to thousands of daily-wage workers who cannot rely on unemployment benefits to survive.Arisman, 35, a motorcycle taxi driver in Jakarta, Indonesia, said he got his second shot of the Chinese-made Sinovac vaccine in July because his job involved contact with many people.“If I get sick, I don’t get money,” said Arisman, who like many Indonesians goes by one name. “If I don’t work, I don’t get money.”The lack of social safety nets in many Asian countries motivated many governments to roll out the vaccines quickly, said Tikki Pangestu, a co-chair of the Asia-Pacific Immunization Coalition, a group that assesses Covid-19 vaccine preparedness. “At the end of the day, if they don’t do it, they’re going to end up with social unrest, which is the last thing they want,” he added.A farmer in rural Sabak Bernam, Malaysia, getting vaccinated in July. The lack of social safety nets in many Asian countries motivated many governments to roll out the vaccines quickly.Vincent Thian/Associated PressWhen the United States and European nations were rushing to vaccinate their people late last year, many Asian countries felt they had the luxury of time. They had kept the coronavirus under control by masking, testing and keeping their borders shut. Many nations wanted to wait until the clinical trials were completed before they placed orders.Then came the Delta variant. Despite keeping their countries largely sealed off, the virus found its way in. And when it did, it spread quickly. In the summer, South Korea battled its worst wave of infections; hospitals in Indonesia ran out of oxygen and beds; and in Thailand, health care workers had to turn away patients.With cases surging, countries quickly shifted their vaccination approach.Sydney, Australia, announced a lockdown in June after an unvaccinated limousine driver caught the Delta variant from an American aircrew. Then, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who had previously said vaccination “was not a race,” called in July on Australians to “go for gold” in the country’s inoculation drive.He moved to overcome a supply shortage, compounded by the slow regulatory approval. In August, Australia bought one million Pfizer doses from Poland; this month, Mr. Morrison announced a purchase of a million Moderna shots from Europe.When the Delta outbreak emerged, fewer than 25 percent of Australians over the age of 16 had received a single shot. In the state of New South Wales, which includes Sydney, 86 percent of the adult population has now received a first dose, and 62 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. The country expects to fully inoculate 80 percent of its population over the age of 16 by early November.“There was great community leadership — there were people from across the political divide who came out to support vaccination,” said Greg Dore, an infectious-disease expert at the University of New South Wales. “It really helped us turn around a level of hesitancy that was there.”Many governments have used incentives to encourage inoculations.In South Korea, the authorities eased restrictions in August on private gatherings for fully vaccinated people, allowing them to meet in larger groups while maintaining stricter curbs for others. Singapore, which has fully vaccinated 82 percent of its population, previously announced similar measures.Researchers there have also analyzed the pockets of people who refuse to be inoculated and are trying to persuade them.Dr. Ng from the National University of Singapore and his team recently found out that a group of seniors who lived alone were worried about possible adverse effects from the vaccine, fearing they could die in solitude. The volunteers promised they would visit after the vaccinations, a strategy that worked.“This targeted approach does make a difference, because at the end of the day, the mass communications campaign can only take you so far,” Dr. Ng said.Rangers in the Thai Army built bamboo beds for hospitals in the southern province of Narathiwat last week.Madaree Tohlala/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOnce countries were able to order vaccines, many had to scramble to set up the infrastructures needed to immunize the masses and quell public anger over the initially slow rollouts.Miharu Kuzuhara, 26, a graphic illustrator in Tokyo, got her Pfizer shots in July and August but was frustrated that she had to wait that long. “We were losing to our other Asian neighbors, like Taiwan and South Korea,” Ms. Kuzuhara said. “I had this feeling of disappointment, like Japan is really the worst.”The Japanese government dispatched the country’s military to run vaccination centers in Tokyo and Osaka and authorized companies to give shots to their employees. Local governments offered payments to doctors and nurses to administer the shots during their days off.The share of people inoculated against Covid-19 in Japan, at 69.6 percent, recently overtook that of the United States. In some rural areas, vaccination rates are already close to 100 percent. “Normally, people are hesitant, they’re not very enthusiastic about vaccines,” said Dr. Takashi Nakano, a professor of infectious diseases at Kawasaki Medical School. But “there was strong political commitment, a real feeling in the nation that because this is an infectious disease, we need to take steps to prevent it.”Reporting was contributed by More

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    Are you still not working because of the pandemic? We want to hear from you.

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    The economy has begun to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic, but millions of people still haven’t returned to work. Some are looking but haven’t been able to find jobs. Others can’t work because of child care or other responsibilities. Still others say the pandemic led them to rethink how they prioritize their careers.What is keeping you on the sidelines right now? How are you getting by financially without a steady paycheck? How has your time away from work changed your life, both now and in the future?Tell us about your experience. More

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    'Every Day Is Frightening': Working For Walmart Amid Covid

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    It was a hot morning in Baton Rouge, La., the day that Peter Naughton woke up on the floor.Sore, disoriented, he’d already grasped what his mother was now telling him: He’d had another seizure. But he also grasped a larger truth: He needed to pull it together and somehow go to work.A cashier and self-checkout host at the nearby Walmart, Mr. Naughton dreaded depleting his limited paid time off in the midst of a pandemic. His mother, for her part, insisted that her epileptic son, then 44, stay home and rest. The hours after a seizure were difficult enough. Toss in the stress of Covid-19 and a customer base that largely — and often angrily — rejected mask use, and a day at work seemed anything but recuperative.In the end, Mr. Naughton’s growing headache and general fogginess were intense enough that he conceded to his mother’s wishes. He dialed once, twice, three times. No answer. Given the penalty for missing work without giving notice — and the fear of risking his job during uncertain times — he saw what he had to do. Reeling, he made the trip to the store and clocked in.That was the summer of 2020, and in the bewildering year since, the stakes and strain around low-wage frontline jobs like Mr. Naughton’s seem only to have multiplied.As shuttered offices cautiously debate the merits and logistics of reopening, a parallel sphere of workers — retail employees, day laborers, emergency personnel, medical staff, and so on — seemingly inhabit another country entirely. In their case nothing ever shuttered. Often their jobs just got really, really hard.“Every day is frightening,” Mr. Naughton said recently, now nearly two years into his employment at Walmart.Mr. Naughton said this in the dark, his power still out days after Hurricane Ida had barreled through Louisiana. It was 93 degrees. Later he would take another cold shower, also in the dark, in hopes of cooling off before bed.Mr. Naughton lives on a quiet, grassy street of low brick homes with his aging parents, not far from where he attended high school some two decades prior. He had an apartment of his own for a while last year, but his $11.55 hourly wage wasn’t enough to pay the rent, even working full time. So he moved back in with his mother and father, and now lives in fear of bringing the highly contagious Delta variant home to them. (Mr. Naughton is fully vaccinated. But at 78, his father has health issues that prevent him from getting the shots, Mr. Naughton said — health issues that make severe illness likelier should he contract the disease.)Mr. Naughton, 45, lives with his aging parents and worries about bringing the highly contagious Delta variant home to them.Emily Kask for The New York TimesElsewhere in the country, the conversation has begun to move on, away from early Covid alarm and into something more guardedly speculative. What will post-pandemic life look like? How have our priorities shifted? But for vast swaths of the nation, largely untouched by doses from Pfizer and Moderna, it remains late 2020 in many ways.“A lot of people here still don’t believe the virus is real — even when the hospitals are full, even when they have family dying,” Mr. Naughton said. “With the vaccines, one co-worker told me getting it would go against her faith. Another told me it contains baby fetuses and mercury. Someone else said it was created by Bill Gates to insert microchips to track you. I said, ‘Why would he want to track you?’”The conversations Mr. Naughton describes may be epidemiologically out of step, but he and thousands of others seem trapped in an America-right-now vortex, a swirl of politics, belief, resentment and fear. At fast food restaurants, grocery stores, warehouses, nursing homes and anywhere else frontline workers show up each day, a deep schism has taken hold. Workers nervous about the virus find themselves at the mercy of those who aren’t.“If I ask people to wear a mask or socially distance at work, they get mad and tell the manager. Then I have to get coached. If you get coached too many times, you lose your job,” Mr. Naughton said, referring to the company’s system for managing worker infractions. (Charles Crowson, a Walmart spokesman, did not dispute that an accumulation of coachings could lead to termination.)Draped over this dynamic are often the stark realities of poverty, and the stresses of navigating a low-paying job in a high-pressure situation. And so an already strained situation strains further. Bitterness over masking requests, job insecurity, a run on bottled water, vaccine politics — tensions routinely boil over in his store and beyond, Mr. Naughton said.“It wasn’t always like this. It used to be more friendly here. It’s become hostile. People are really on edge. They fight with you in the store, or with each other,” he said. “The other day a woman wanted to fight over the price of potatoes. You can even see it in how people drive, like they have a death wish.”These days Mr. Naughton passes a fair amount of time alone. He burns off stress at the gym, goes on hikes, reads books on politics. (By flashlight, in the days after Hurricane Ida.) The Delta resurgence also dealt a blow to his social life — at one point, concerned about the alarming spread in Louisiana, he canceled plans to see live comedy with a co-worker. She went on without him; “she wasn’t worried about it,” he said.Over the last few months, Mr. Naughton has pinned his hopes on a transfer — there’s another nearby Walmart he believes to be less stressful. After extensive lobbying, he said the move was finally approved. Coincidentally, it’s to the same store where his father routinely shops, Covid risks and all.Mr. Naughton had an apartment of his own last year, but his $11.55 hourly wage wasn’t enough to pay the rent.Emily Kask for The New York Times“He’s stubborn. He goes there for pastries, for Coke. He spends hours there. We tell him not to, it’s not safe,” Mr. Naughton said.With nearly 1.6 million workers, Walmart is the largest private employer in the country. It employs 35,954 people in Louisiana alone, working for one of the 137 Supercenters, discount stores, neighborhood markets or Sam’s Clubs across the state. Covid appears to have been good for the bottom line: During fiscal 2020, the company generated $559 billion in revenue, up $35 billion from the previous year. But labor activists say too little of that money has gone toward work force protections, which in turn has prolonged the pandemic..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}According to United for Respect, a nonprofit labor advocacy group for Walmart and Amazon workers — Mr. Naughton is an outspoken member — safety measures remain deeply insufficient.“Thousands of Walmart associates across the country like Peter have been forced to endure poverty wages and abysmal benefits while working through a deadly pandemic, managing panic-buying sprees and culture wars over mask mandates,” said Bianca Agustin, the accountability director for United for Respect.In a survey the group conducted of Walmart associates — the term the company uses for all non-temporary employees — in May 2020, nearly half said they had come into work sick or would do so, fearing retaliation otherwise. This past April the group released a report with the public health nonprofit Human Impact Partners, finding that Walmart could have prevented at least 7,618 Covid cases and saved 133 lives with a more robust paid sick time policy. (Researchers have estimated that some 125,000 Walmart workers nationwide likely contracted Covid between February 2020 and February 2021.)United for Respect is pushing for five measures in response: hazard pay of $5 per hour; access to adequate paid and unpaid leave; immediate notification of positive cases within a given store; the inclusion of workers in the creation of safety protocols; and protection from retaliation. In the meantime, it has created a Covid reporting tool for workers at Amazon and Walmart. So far almost 1,900 cases have been claimed at 360 stores and facilities.“Walmart lets in people without masks all the time, and social distancing isn’t enforced,” Mr. Naughton said. “Our lives are constantly in danger. They have ‘health ambassadors,’ but all they do is sit at the door offering customers masks. I’ve had to fill in for them. A lot of people just ignore you, or else get angry.”In response, Mr. Crowson, the Walmart spokesman, replied that the company “has worked hard to protect the health and safety of associates and customers. This includes administering no-cost vaccinations, enhanced cleaning practices, daily health screenings and temperature checks for our associates, special bonuses and an emergency leave policy.”For Mr. Naughton, donning his yellow “Proud Walmart Associate” vest each morning and going to work is basic survival in perilous economic times.Emily Kask for The New York TimesFor his part, Mr. Naughton continues fearing work while also fearing the idea of missing any. That’s partly the work ethic he inherited from his father, who never once called in sick to the chemical plant where he spent his career. But it’s also basic survival in perilous economic times. Putting aside any medical implications for him or his loved ones, he worries that contracting Covid could cost him his job. At 45, reliant on Medicaid for health coverage and having no retirement plan to speak of, he continues to don his yellow “Proud Walmart Associate” vest each morning.Over the years Mr. Naughton has worked at fast food restaurants, grocery stores and an amusement park. The idea of finding a more Covid-safe work-from-home gig appeals to him, but his hours at Walmart leave little time for job hunting. Regardless, he says the positions he comes across are “the kind you can’t get without experience, but you can’t get experience without a job.”Asked about the distant universe of office careers and mask-wars-free remote work, Mr. Naughton, he replied that it all feels “unfair.”“They say we’re essential,” he said, “but they treat us like we’re disposable.” More

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    Could This Covid Wave Reverse the Recovery? Here’s What to Watch.

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    Some businesses are still hurting, and federal aid has wound down. But economists see sources of resilience and signs of strength.The spread of the Delta variant has delayed office reopenings, disrupted the start of school and generally dashed hopes for a return to normal after Labor Day. But it has not pushed the U.S. economic recovery into reverse.Now that recovery faces a new test: the removal of much of the aid that has helped keep households and businesses afloat for the past year and a half.The Paycheck Protection Program, which distributed hundreds of billions of dollars in grants and loans to thousands of small businesses, concluded last spring. A federal eviction moratorium ended last month after the Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration’s last-minute effort to extend it. Most recently, an estimated 7.5 million people lost unemployment benefits when programs that expanded the system during the pandemic were allowed to lapse.Next up: the Federal Reserve, which on Wednesday indicated it could start pulling back its stimulus efforts as early as November.The one-two punch of a resurgent pandemic and waning aid has led Wall Street forecasters, who were once rosy about the economy’s prospects this fall and winter, to turn increasingly glum. Goldman Sachs said this month that it expected third-quarter data to show a decline in consumer spending, the linchpin of the recovery for the past year. Many economists expect jobs numbers for September to show a second straight month of anemic growth.Yet economists also see important sources of strength that could help the recovery overcome the latest coronavirus wave and possibly fuel a strong rebound on the other side of it. Few believe the overall economy is headed for another recession, let alone a repeat of last year’s collapse.“There’s been a clear deceleration, but I would stress deceleration rather than retrenchment,” said Jay Bryson, chief economist for Wells Fargo. “We certainly think that the expansion will continue.”Rather than posing an immediate threat, what the withdrawal of aid does is leave the recovery with less of a safety net if economists are wrong or if the public health situation worsens — both scenarios that have recurred throughout the pandemic.“I think one should be concerned that we could see the recovery weaken further and that appetite for putting in place more fiscal stimulus has diminished,” said Karen Dynan, a Harvard professor who was a Treasury official under President Barack Obama.And even if the recovery stays on course, it will almost certainly leave out some individuals and businesses, who face an increasingly uncertain fall with little government help. Even under the most optimistic scenarios, it will take months for all the workers who lost benefits this month to find jobs.“Fall will be slower for all of us because we’ve withdrawn the support,” said William E. Spriggs, a Howard University professor and chief economist for the A.F.L.-C.I.O. “There will be a slowdown in the labor market, and it will be disproportionately Black and brown workers who will have to deal with it.”The pandemic isn’t holding back activity as it once did.The Delta variant has caused a clear slowdown in certain sectors, particularly dining and air travel. But so far the decline in activity is nothing like the economywide pullback that the United States experienced in previous Covid waves.State and local government officials have not reimposed the lockdown orders and business restrictions put in place in earlier waves of the pandemic, and they appear disinclined to do so. Consumers appear to have become more careful, but they haven’t abandoned in-person activities, and many businesses have found ways to adapt.Restaurant reservations on OpenTable, for example, have fallen less than 10 percent from their early-July peak. That is a far smaller decline than during the last Covid surge, last winter.“It has moved down, but it’s not the same sort of decline,” Mr. Bryson said of the OpenTable data. “We’re living with it.”One wild card is how the Delta variant could affect the supply of workers. If virus rates remain high, people may hesitate to take jobs requiring face-to-face interaction, particularly where vaccination rates are low. And if schools and day care centers can’t stay open consistently, parents may have difficulty returning to work.The government is still providing a boost.Government aid hasn’t dried up entirely. The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that it could soon begin to pare its $120 billion in monthly bond purchases — which have kept borrowing cheap and money flowing through the economy — but it will almost certainly keep interest rates near zero into next year. Millions of parents will continue to receive monthly checks through the end of the year because of the expanded child tax credit passed in March as part of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion aid package.That bill, known as the American Rescue Plan, also provided $350 billion to state and local governments, $21.6 billion in rental aid and $10 billion in mortgage assistance, among other programs. But much has not been spent, said Wendy Edelberg, director of the Hamilton Project, an economic-policy arm of the Brookings Institution.“Those delays are frustrating,” she said. “At the same time, what that also means is that support is going to continue having an effect over the next several quarters.”Household savings could provide a buffer — if they last.Economists, including officials in the Biden administration, say that as the economy heals, there will be a gradual “handoff” from government aid to the private sector. That transition could be eased by a record-setting pile of household savings, which could help prop up consumer spending as government aid wanes.A lot of that money is held by richer, white-collar workers who held on to their jobs and saw their stock portfolios swell even as the pandemic constrained their spending. But many lower-income households have built up at least a small savings cushion during the pandemic because of stimulus checks, enhanced unemployment benefits and other aid, according to researchers at the JPMorgan Chase Institute.“The good news is that people are going into the fall with some reserves, more reserves than normal,” said Fiona Greig, co-director of the institute. “That can give them some runway in which to look for a job.”The risk, for individual households and the broader economy, is that aid will run out before the private sector can take the baton.Michael Ernette, 48, lost his job assembling manufactured homes in January and despite applying to four to five jobs a day, he hasn’t found work. He used his last unemployment check to pay off as many outstanding bills as possible, and now he is on a countdown to when he can’t make rent.“I took the last payment that we had and I paid everything and I’m roughly good through the end of October,” said Mr. Ernette, who lives near Pittsburgh. “That gives me 60 more days to find employment.”Businesses are entering a critical period.Eighty percent of small businesses are worried about the impact of the Delta variant, according to a recent survey by Alignable, a social network for small business owners. Not all have had sales turn lower, said Eric Groves, the company’s chief executive. But the uncertainty is hitting at a crucial moment, heading into the holiday season.“This is a time of year when business owners in the consumer sector in particular are trying to pull out their crystal ball,” he said. “Now is when they have to be purchasing inventory and doing all that planning.”“We pride ourselves on taking hits and getting back up,” said Ken Giddon, co-owner of the men’s clothing store Rothmans.Mohamed Sadek for The New York TimesRothmans, a century-old men’s clothing retailer in New York, is in one of the hardest-hit sectors in one of the nation’s hardest-hit cities. Yet a co-owner, Ken Giddon, is betting on the future: Last week, the company announced it would open a new location as part of a development project on the West Side of Manhattan.“We pride ourselves on taking hits and getting back up,” he said.The pandemic has been hard, Mr. Giddon said, but it has also created opportunities by driving down commercial rents and leaving fewer competitors. The Delta variant has delayed the return-to-office boom that retailers had been hoping for, but Mr. Giddon expects workers to return eventually — and to need new clothes when they do.“We don’t really care if people go back to work in suits or jeans,” he said. “We just want men to think about buying new clothes again.”In Minneapolis, however, Nicole Pomije is still struggling to make payroll.Ms. Pomije opened her baking business, the Cookie Cups, in 2018 after several years of selling at farmers’ markets and other events in the area. Much of her revenue came from cooking classes and birthday parties — activities that were virtually impossible for much of the past year and a half.Ms. Pomije closed one of her two locations for good in June. The other is hanging on, but barely — the store restarted cooking classes this year, which brought in some money, but parents are nervous about signing up their unvaccinated children for indoor activities.“I can’t tell you how many payrolls I’ve pulled out of my savings account the past two years,” Ms. Pomije said.Last year, Nicole Pomije introduced a set of baking kits aimed at children, which she is selling online.Caroline Yang for The New York TimesMs. Pomije is trying to adapt. Last year, she created a set of baking kits aimed at children, which she is selling online. The product has been a success — she has sold nearly 3,500 kits, and is expanding her offerings — but she has been plagued by supply-chain issues. A crucial shipment from Asia, containing the boxes she uses to package her kits, was held up at the Los Angeles port complex for 60 days.Ms. Pomije said she would be out of business already if she hadn’t received help from the federal government. Now, with more help unlikely, she is hoping holiday sales will help save her business.“This fourth quarter is going to be really critical to our success,” she said. “If we do sell enough product online even to just pay our payroll, rent and critical bills to stay afloat, with enough inventory still to sell, I think we’ll be fine.”Supply issues are putting policymakers in a bind.Early in the pandemic, economists had a simple message for policymakers: Go big. If some aid ended up going to people or businesses that didn’t really need help, that was a reasonable trade-off for the benefit of getting money to the millions who did.Today, the calculus is different. The impact of the pandemic is more tightly focused on a few industries and groups. At the same time, many businesses are having trouble getting workers and materials to meet existing demand. Traditional forms of stimulus that seek to stoke demand won’t help them. If automakers can’t get needed parts, for example, giving money to households won’t lead to more car sales — but it might lead to higher prices.That puts policymakers in a tight spot. If they don’t get help to those who are struggling, it could cause individual hardship and weaken the recovery. But indiscriminate spending could worsen supply problems and lead to inflation. That calls for a more targeted approach, focusing on the specific groups and industries that need it most, said Nela Richardson, chief economist for ADP, the payroll processing firm.“There are a lot of arrows in the quiver still, but you need them to go into the bull’s-eye now rather than just going all over,” Ms. Richardson said. More

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    Federal Reserve Signals a Shift Away From Pandemic Support

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    The Fed said it could soon slow its large-scale purchases of government-backed bonds and indicated it might raise interest rates in 2022.Federal Reserve officials indicated on Wednesday that they expect to soon slow the asset purchases they have been using to support the economy and predicted they might raise interest rates next year, sending a clear signal that policymakers are preparing to curtail full-blast monetary help as the business environment snaps back from the pandemic shock.Jerome H. Powell, the Fed’s chair, said during a news conference that the central bank’s bond purchases, which have propped up the economy since the depths of the pandemic downturn, “still have a use, but it’s time for us to begin to taper them.”That unusual candor came for a reason: Fed officials have been trying to fully prepare markets for their first move away from enormous economic support. Policymakers could announce a slowdown to their monthly government-backed securities purchases as soon as November, the Fed’s next meeting, and the program may come to a complete end by the middle of next year, Mr. Powell later said. He added that there was “very broad support” on the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee for such a plan.Nearly 20 months after the coronavirus pandemic first shook America, the Fed is trying to guide an economy in which business has rebounded as consumers spend strongly, helped along by repeated government stimulus checks and other benefits.Yet the virus persists and many adults remain unvaccinated, preventing a full return to normal activity. External threats also loom, including tremors in China’s real estate market that have put financial markets on edge. In the United States, partisan wrangling could imperil future government spending plans or even cause a destabilizing delay to a needed debt ceiling increase.Mr. Powell and his colleagues are navigating those crosscurrents at a time when inflation is high and the labor market, while healing, remains far from full strength. They are weighing when and how to reduce their monetary policy support, hoping to prevent economic or financial market overheating while keeping the recovery on track.“They want to start the exit,” said Priya Misra, global head of rates strategy at T.D. Securities. “They’re putting the markets on notice.”Investors took the latest update in stride. The S&P 500 ended up 1 percent for the day, slightly higher than it was before the Fed’s policy statement was released, and yields on government bonds ticked lower, suggesting that investors didn’t see a reason to radically change their expectations for interest rates.The Fed has been holding its policy rate at rock bottom since March 2020 and is buying $120 billion in government-backed bonds each month, policies that work together to keep many types of borrowing cheap. The combination has fueled lending and spending and helped to foster stronger economic growth, while also contributing to record highs in the stock market.But now, officials believe the time has come to tiptoe away from such full-fledged support. Late last year, policymakers laid out a lower bar for slowing purchases than for lifting interest rates. They simply wanted to see “substantial further progress” toward their goals of stable inflation and maximum employment before pulling back on asset buying. When it comes to lifting rates, officials indicated they would like to see inflation sustainably at their target and a labor market that is fully healed.Slowing their asset purchases in the near-term could give the Fed more room to be more nimble in the future. Policymakers have signaled that they want to stop buying securities before moving interest rates above zero.But Mr. Powell has tried to clearly separate the two decisions, signaling that changes to the policy interest rate — the Fed’s more traditional and more powerful tool — are not imminent.“You’re going to be well away from satisfying the liftoff test when we begin to taper,” he reiterated on Wednesday.Half of the Fed’s policymakers expect to lift rates from near-zero next year. Officials released a fresh set of economic projections on Wednesday, laying out their predictions for growth, inflation and the funds rate through the end of 2024. Those included the “dot plot” — a set of anonymous individual estimates showing where each of the Fed’s 18 policymakers expect their interest rate to fall at the end of each year.Where the Fed Stands on Future Interest Rates More

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    Retailers Rethink Pandemic-Battered Manhattan

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    Starbucks has closed more than 40 stores, while adding mobile-order pickup counters in others. Other chains like Sonic are taking advantage of vacancies to establish themselves in New York.In the heart of Manhattan’s garment district, a once-busy Starbucks on the corner of Eighth Avenue and 39th Street sits empty. Just down the block, a Dos Toros Taqueria that opened just three years ago is now closed. And Wok to Walk, which once served steaming containers of noodles mixed with chicken and vegetables to a bustling lunch crowd, is also shuttered.While the Delta variant of the coronavirus has again delayed plans by many companies to bring employees back to offices en masse, workers who have been trickling into Midtown are discovering that many of their favorite haunts for a quick cup of coffee and a muffin in the morning or sandwich or salad at lunchtime have disappeared. A number of those that are open are operating at reduced hours or with limited menus.With the pandemic keeping millions of New York City office employees home for the past year, restaurants, coffee shops, apparel retailers and others struggled to stay afloat.By the end of 2020, the number of chain stores in Manhattan — everything from drugstores to clothing retailers to restaurants — had fallen by more than 17 percent from 2019, according to the Center for an Urban Future, a nonprofit research and policy organization.Across Manhattan, the number of available ground-floor stores, normally the domain of busy restaurants and clothing stores, has soared. A quarter of the ground-floor storefronts in Lower Manhattan are available for rent, while about a third are available in Herald Square, according to a report by the real-estate firm Cushman & Wakefield.Starbucks has permanently closed 44 of its 235 locations in Manhattan. It is now adding pickup areas in many stores.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesStarbucks has permanently closed 44 outlets in Manhattan since March of last year. Pret a Manger has reopened only half of the 60 locations it had in New York City before the pandemic. Numerous delicatessens, independent restaurants and smaller local chains have gone dark.“Midtown clearly has been the hardest hit of any of the areas of Manhattan,” said Jeffrey Roseman, a veteran retail real-estate broker with Newmark. “If you think of other office-centric areas, whether all the way downtown or Flatiron or Hudson Yards, there is a lot of residential surrounding those areas that helped sustain those markets. Midtown, for the most part, is a one-trick pony.“It’s mostly offices and hotels, which also took a hit from the downturn in tourism.”The turmoil has reached farther downtown though. Last week, the luxury furniture retailer ABC Carpet & Home — whose flagship store was a fixture of the Union Square area — filed for bankruptcy protection, in part because of “a mass exodus of current and prospective customers leaving the city.”But in a city where one person’s downturn is someone else’s opportunity, some restaurant chains are taking advantage of the record-low retail rents to set up shop or expand their presence in New York City.In the second quarter, food and beverage companies signed 23 new leases in Manhattan, leading apparel retailers, which signed 10 new leases, according to the commercial real estate services firm CBRE.Shake Shack and Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen were among those signing new rental agreements this year. So was the burger chain Sonic, which signed a lease for its first New York City outpost, replacing a Pax Wholesome Foods location in Midtown. The Philippines-based chicken joint Jollibee, which enjoys a committed following, plans to open a massive flagship restaurant in Times Square.Sonic signed a lease for its first New York City outpost, replacing a Pax Wholesome Foods in Midtown.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesStill, with so much uncertainty about when employees may fully return to Midtown offices, some companies are proceeding carefully. The coffee shop Bluestone Lane had plans to expand aggressively into Manhattan before the pandemic and is still considering locations in Midtown. But it has now turned its focus to opening in more residential neighborhoods like Battery Park City, Hudson Yards and Tribeca.“We intentionally selected urban residential areas for our new cafes so we are not dependent on our locals returning to a physical office space, and are well-positioned for the future of hybrid work,” Nick Stone, the founder and chief executive of Bluestone Lane, said in an emailed statement.And some chain restaurants that already have reopened in Midtown are altering their strategies to address what they believe are the changing needs of customers in a post-Covid world.On a recent weekday, a handful of customers were nibbling on salads and sandwiches at the Bryant Park location of Le Pain Quotidien. The long, communal tables that once dominated the front of the restaurant are gone for now, while refrigerated cases for a selection of grab-and-go drinks, salads and sandwiches will be expanded next year as part of a remodeling. A new app to preorder and pick up food became available in May.While the new technologies work for some customers, others long for the past.A Europa Cafe in Times Square closed, one of numerous stores to shutter during the pandemic.Hilary Swift for The New York Times“We used QR codes for guests to look at the menu as we tried to limit the contact of surfaces, but the majority of our guests want to hold a real menu,” said Stephen Smittle, the senior vice president of operations for Le Pain Quotidien. “They very much want to feel normal. They want a server. They want to hold a cup of coffee, not a paper cup.”Struggling before the pandemic, Le Pain Quotidien filed for bankruptcy in May 2020. It was acquired by Aurify Brands, which has since reopened many of the Le Pain Quotidien locations around the city, including several in Midtown.“Our thinking is that Midtown New York will come back to a level that might not be 100 percent prepandemic, but based upon information we have gathered, I do believe that Midtown is going to come back to a prominent level,” Mr. Smittle said.An online-order status board at Starbucks.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesCustomers increasingly like ordering drinks online and then picking up at the store.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesFor Starbucks, one of the big lessons from the pandemic was that customers liked ordering their drinks online and then quickly picking them up at stores or drive-throughs. Starbucks had started to offer that even before the pandemic, opening a pickup location in Midtown’s Pennsylvania Plaza in late 2019.Since early 2020, Starbucks has permanently closed 44 of its 235 locations in Manhattan. But it is in the process of adding mobile pickup areas in many stores and adding more pickup-only locations. The company says that it expects to have net new store growth in Manhattan in the next few years.Before the pandemic, Starbucks operated three stores around the Columbus Circle area. It closed them and this year, opened one large restaurant. Now runners from Central Park pick up their preordered drinks from a mobile counter and head out again, while other customers stand in line to place their orders and can sit at nearby tables.“We were going to build the concept out and evolve over time,” said John Culver, the president of North America and chief operating officer for Starbucks. “What we’ve done is taken the opportunity that the pandemic has presented and accelerated the transformation of our portfolio of stores. Consumer behaviors during the pandemic have accelerated at levels that no one expected.” More

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    Photos: Witnessing the U.S. Economy’s Recovery in 2021

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    September glimmered in the distance. As a hopeful spring gave way to summer, this was to be the month when pandemic restrictions and government aid would fully cease, and when a new season of live gatherings, face-to-face schooling and office work would begin. But events spilled out in unpredictable ways. New York Times photographers around […] More

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    Poverty in U.S. Declined Thanks to Government Aid, Census Report Shows

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    When government benefits are taken into account, a smaller share of the population was living in poverty in 2020 even as the pandemic eliminated millions of jobs.The share of people living in poverty in the United States fell to a record low last year as an enormous government relief effort helped offset the worst economic contraction since the Great Depression.In the latest and most conclusive evidence that poverty fell because of the aid, the Census Bureau reported on Tuesday that 9.1 percent of Americans were living below the poverty line last year, down from 11.8 percent in 2019. That figure — the lowest since records began in 1967, according to calculations from researchers at Columbia University — is based on a measure that accounts for the impact of government programs. The official measure of poverty, which leaves out some major aid programs, rose to 11.4 percent of the population.The new data will almost surely feed into a debate in Washington about efforts by President Biden and congressional leaders to enact a more lasting expansion of the safety net that would extend well beyond the pandemic. Democrats’ $3.5 trillion plan, which is still taking shape, could include paid family and medical leave, government-supported child care and a permanent expansion of the Child Tax Credit.Liberals cited the success of relief programs, which were also highlighted in an Agriculture Department report last week that showed that hunger did not rise in 2020, to argue that such policies ought to be expanded. But conservatives argue that higher federal spending is not needed and would increase the federal debt while discouraging people from working.The fact that poverty did not rise more during an enormous economic disruption reflects the equally enormous response. Congress expanded unemployment benefits and food aid, doled out hundreds of billions of dollars to small businesses and sent direct checks to most Americans. The Census Bureau estimated that the direct checks alone lifted 11.7 million people out of poverty last year; unemployment benefits and nutrition assistance prevented an additional 10.3 million people from falling into poverty, according to an analysis of the data by The New York Times.“It all points toward the historic income support that was delivered in response to the pandemic and how successful it was at blunting what could have been a historic rise in poverty,” said Christopher Wimer, a co-director of the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at the Columbia University School of Social Work. “I imagine the momentum from 2020 will continue into 2021.”Poverty rose much more after the previous recession, peaking at 16.1 percent in 2011, by the measure that takes fuller account of government assistance, and improving only slowly after that. Many economists have argued that the federal government did not do enough back then and pulled back aid too quickly.Despite the more aggressive response this time, however, median household income last year fell 2.9 percent, adjusted for inflation, to about $68,000. That figure includes unemployment benefits but not stimulus checks or noncash benefits such as food stamps. The decline reflects the pandemic’s toll on jobs: About 13.7 million fewer people worked full time year-round compared with 2019. More