SWC’s Fast Five

More of us are using food banks so no surprise that household income is down. Still CFO’s are optimistic, post pandemic, and the vaccine will slow roll into communities. Pantone does a number on its color and we bring you more symbols and abbreviations so we can understand each other online.

So, here’s this week’s Fast Five:

1 Feeding America sees 60 percent increase in food bank users

Those fighting hunger say they’ve never seen anything like this in America, even during the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Feeding America has never handed out so much food so fast — 4.2 billion meals from March through October. The organization says about 4 in 10 are first-time food bank users during the pandemic.

2 Household income down, CFOs optimistic as economic recovery forecasts vary

While the percentage of North American CFOs expecting better conditions in a year rose from 43 percent last quarter to 59 percent now, around one in four don’t expect improvement until the beginning of 2022 or later. Much of CFO’s forward-looking optimism hinges on three events CFOs overwhelmingly support: more fiscal stimulus, a federal infrastructure spending package and a nationally coordinated COVID response — none of which is in place right now.

3 When will you get the vaccine?

It depends on your age, medical condition or if you are an essential worker. Pfizer’s vaccine is soon to receive FDA approval and another by Moderna is under review. In a best-case scenario, the federal government says it may be possible for vaccines to be widely available by spring of 2021.

4 Come on Pantone, gray is your 2021 color?

It also says yellow is in there, too, a combination of, “…deeper feelings of thoughtfulness with the optimistic promise of sunshine…” Whatever.

5 What we need to know what we mean, SRS

A famous UCLA study found that humans glean most meaning from body language and tone rather than what is actually said. Now we have tone indicators to have some certainty of what the heck we mean when we post online.