The death of George Floyd by a police "knee" has affected the United States, and protests have continued across the country. All sectors of society attribute the cause to racial problems in the United States, but the United States has had problems of racial discrimination, big and small, for many years. Why is such a large-scale protest breaking out at this time? For answers, take a closer look at other data changes in the United States. Affected by the epidemic, workers across the United States have experienced large-scale unemployment. According to the US employment report, the unemployment rate in April this year (2020) was as high as 14.7%. Although there was a downward trend in May, it was still as high as 13.3%. %, total unemployment remains close to 20 million. A large number of the bottom of the society cannot afford the basic daily expenses, and there are problems in basic life. You must know that American citizens do not have the habit of saving, and the unemployment problem has put a huge question mark on daily life. In response to the large-scale unemployment, the US government adopted a large amount of cash to issue huge unemployment benefits to protect the daily life of the bottom society, which also directly stimulated the domestic inflation problem. According to the latest inflation data released by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on May 12, 2020, average U.S. food prices rose 3.5% in the 12 months to the end of April. Food prices are the most important factor in daily life. To confirm the correlation between this value and protests, we can go back to March when the epidemic in the United States had not yet begun to spread.
According to statistics on the number of confirmed cases, the number of confirmed cases in the United States before March 7 was less than 100, and daily life has not been affected by the epidemic. The "food inflation rate" for this month remained within the normal range of 1.8%. However, since April, the number of confirmed diagnoses has doubled every day, and major cities have adopted measures to close the city to face the spread of the epidemic, but even so, by the beginning of May, the number of confirmed diagnoses in the United States still exceeded one million mark. In order to alleviate the social impact and unemployment problems caused by the closure of the city, the US government chose to print Pricing a lot of money at this time and began to issue unemployment benefits, but this also directly affected the "food inflation rate", which exploded in April. To 3.5%, growth was a nine-year high. Looking back at history, the last time the "food inflation rate" exceeded 3.5% was in the first quarter of 2012, with an average increase of 3.5%, and the average increase in January and February was as high as 4%. This year also resulted in the incident of George Zimmerman and the African-American youth Trevon Martin as the fuse, which eventually triggered a wave of nationwide protests, and the incident took place in Sanford, Florida. , Sanford), there was a riot, causing several police cars to be set on fire. The impact of the "food inflation rate" is not only in the United States, but also affects the whole world. In order to get rid of the economic crisis in 2008, the US Federal Reserve began to carry out quantitative easing (QE) in 2009.
As of the Arab Spring in December 2010, the Federal Reserve conducted a total of two rounds of QE, printing a lot of money. As a result, it caused inflation all over the world and planted the seeds for the outbreak of protests around the world. The U.S. dollar is the world's reserve currency, and the world's major commodities are priced based on the U.S. dollar. Therefore, the result of printing a large number of banknotes is to cause inflation around the world. For the people at the bottom, the impact of inflation has caused the price of food to skyrocket, making their income unable to afford the most basic food expenses, and ultimately making it impossible for the people at the bottom to live. Large-scale protests in various places seem logical. According to the above information, it can be explained that the reasons for the large-scale protests in the United States, in addition to the factors of racial discrimination, unemployment rate and "food inflation rate" are also the main reasons for the riots. Today, the demonstrations and protests in the United States have gradually gotten out of control. If the domestic society in the United States is to return to its previous calm, how the Trump administration handles the issues of "food inflation" and unemployment is particularly important at this time. . Further reading