Editorial: Be shocked, but not surprised, by massive unemployment

The numbers are exploding as more people are affected by the coronavirus epidemic.

Not just the number of people who are diagnosed with the disease, now topping a million worldwide and 266,000 in the United States. Not just the number of people who have died — some 7,000 nationally and more than 100 in Pennsylvania.

But for every person struggling to breathe, there are other victims of the virus. Some are trying to live, but some are trying to make a living.

And they are reflected in the staggering numbers of jobless. This past week, 6.6 million people were reported filing for unemployment, double the 3.3 million of the week before.

That is just as scary as a virus that has the possibility of putting you in the hospital, or on a ventilator. Maybe more so, because not everyone will get the virus, and not everyone who gets it will be critically ill. But a roof overhead and food on the table? That’s something everyone can understand.

Yet we just shouldn’t let the increasing numbers paralyze us, because they aren’t a surprise.

Businesses and schools started shutting down weeks ago. On March 19, Gov. Tom Wolf called for closing the physical locations of businesses that are “non-life-sustaining.” Offices, stores, theaters, churches. Name an industry where someone can pick up a paycheck, and it has been hit. Hard. Even those that are still open are either stretched to their limits or fighting to survive.

But we knew this was going to happen. That’s why President Trump, the Republican-led Senate and the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives haggled over that historic $2.2 trillion bill that would shore up the shaky, help ensure the continuation of employment and provide a little bonus to keep the lights on.

So pundits and politickers on all sides have to stop acting like this is any more than why the bill was passed in the first place. It’s like being shocked by the house payment when you already signed the mortgage.

We are better off to focus on making sure the bill is implemented properly — that the small businesses are able to get their loans, that the big ones keep people on the payroll the way they are supposed to, that citizens get their payments on time and easily.

The pandemic has huge consequences. Unemployment is one of the biggest. But if it is the one that keeps the spotlight, we will miss the others that stay in the dark.