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AAF Exchange -- Ep. 49: The Economic Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis (Pt.26) [audio]
From the Webpage: "AAF [American Action Forum] President Douglas Holtz-Eakin discusses how the vacancy left by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsberg may affect Congress's work, the impact of COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] on insurance coverage, and expectations for a COVID-19 vaccine in this episode of the AAF Exchange."
American Action Forum
2020-09-24
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AAF Exchange -- Ep. 47: The Economic Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis (Pt.24) [audio]
From the Webpage: "What's in the GOP's [Grand Old Party's] 'skinny' COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] relief package? AAF [American Action Forum] President Douglas Holtz-Eakin walks us through the package as well as AAF's latest research on the federal unemployment supplement and the August jobs report."
American Action Forum
2020-09-10
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AAF Exchange -- Ep. 48: The Economic Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis (Pt.25) [audio]
From the Webpage: "Is another aid package dead? Where do we go from here? AAF [American Action Forum] President Douglas Holtz-Eakin discusses the latest in coronavirus and economic news."
American Action Forum
2020-09-17
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COVID-19 Pandemic's Impact on Insurance Coverage
From the Document: "Ever since 22 million people lost their jobs in March and April, there has been appropriate concern about the implications of this pandemic-driven job loss on health insurance coverage. Considering that roughly 56 percent of the U.S. population receives insurance through their employer, a substantial loss of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) could trigger a large increase in uninsured rates at the same time that the country grapples with a global health pandemic--hardly an ideal situation. As a result, there have been a number of proposals over the last few months for addressing this assumed insurance loss. But how many people have actually lost their health insurance because of the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] layoffs? The honest answer is that we don't know yet, and the lag time in the data means we won't know for a while."
American Action Forum
Holt, Christopher
2020-09-25
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Assessing Financial Support for Businesses During the Pandemic -- The State of Play
From the Introduction: "As of mid-July, Yelp reports that over half of 132,500 business closures due to the coronavirus pandemic are now permanent. Even as many of the healthiest businesses reopen, concerns about the future business climate under the ongoing threat of coronavirus remain. Against this backdrop, financial relief in some form may be warranted. This analysis provides a brief overview of some key issues facing businesses during the recession and the threats posed by the coronavirus pandemic: the Federal Reserve's (Fed) emergency lending facilities; pandemic business interruption insurance and the potential for a federal pandemic program; and protecting businesses from the costs of an entirely new class of coronavirus-related litigation that businesses were not and could not be prepared for."
American Action Forum
Wade, Thomas
2020-09-28
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Testimony on: Insurance Coverage and the COVID-19 Pandemic
From the Introduction: "Chairwoman Eshoo, Ranking Member Burgess, and members of the committee, thank you for the privilege of appearing today to discuss insurance coverage and the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic. In this testimony, I hope to make three main points: [1] The enormous scale of job losses in the 2nd quarter of 2020 has raised the specter of widespread loss of employer-sponsored health insurance; [2] To date, however, there is no compelling evidence of a dramatic change in the fraction of the population without health insurance; and [3] To the extent that there is diminished employer-sponsored insurance, the marketplaces of the Affordable Care Act should be positioned to provide alternative coverage."
American Action Forum
Holtz-Eakin, Douglas
2020-09-23
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AAF Exchange -- Ep. 50: The Economic Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis (Pt.27) [audio]
From the Webpage: "AAF [American Action Forum] President Douglas Holtz-Eakin discusses the first presidential debate, the views of President Trump and Vice President Biden on health care coverage, and continuing negotiation over federal aid amid the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic in this episode of the AAF Exchange."
American Action Forum
2020-10-01
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Revisiting Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation Under the Biden Administration
From the Introduction: "President Biden's $1.9 trillion [hyperlink] COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] relief package includes provisions to address continued high unemployment as a result of the pandemic. Current unemployment compensation includes regular state benefits in addition to a weekly $300 federal supplement (Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation), extensions for those whose regular unemployment benefits have been exhausted (Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation), and benefits to independent workers (Pandemic Unemployment Assistance). Created under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, these emergency unemployment benefits have already been extended once and are set to fully expire April 5, 2021. Under his proposal, President Biden would extend these provisions through September 2021 and increase the weekly Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) to $400 a week. Doing so would raise the cost of the unemployment insurance (UI) program and lead to a large percentage of workers who could make more on UI than at work."
American Action Forum
Soto, Isabel
2021-02-08
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Food Insecurity and Food Insufficiency: The Impact of COVID-19
From the Introduction: "The COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic has caused numerous challenges beyond the virus's health effects. One of the commonly reported adverse impacts is rising hunger [hyperlink], yet this impact is arising despite substantial financial aid from the federal government, including significantly enhanced nutrition assistance for low-income individuals. This paper analyzes the available data related to food insecurity and food insufficiency to gauge the severity of the pandemic's impact, including how the current statistics compare with historical trends. This analysis reveals inconsistencies not easily explained simply by the toll of the pandemic. Rather, the best available data collected over the past year are not well-suited for comparison with historical data, making it difficult to assess how drastically food insecurity has risen and why."
American Action Forum
O'Neill Hayes, Tara
2021-03-08
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Food Insecurity and Food Insufficiency: Assessing Causes and Historical Trends
From the Introduction: "The images of long lines at food banks during the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] recession drive home two truths. On the one hand, regular access to healthy food is a central aspect of wellbeing, but on the other, economic recessions put this access at risk. The government describes this access in two different ways: food insecurity, and food insufficiency. But what does it mean to be food insecure, and how does that differ from being food insufficient? How are those variables measured, and what risk factors are associated with food insecurity? How have rates of food insecurity changed over time? This paper analyzes those questions and seeks to provide a baseline of understanding from which one can assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic."
American Action Forum
O'Neill Hayes, Tara
2021-03-04
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Long COVID and the Labor Market
From the Document: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates [hyperlink] that between February 2020 and September 2021 nearly 147 million Americans contracted COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019], with a little over 100 million of those cases presenting in working-age adults. 'Multiple studies--including recent 'analysis' from researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles--have found that roughly 30 percent of those infected with COVID-19 experience some long COVID symptoms, again with no correlation to severity of the initial illness.' A January report [hyperlink] from the Brookings Institution pulls this all together, concluding that roughly 30 million working-age Americans have likely experienced long COVID, and further points to multiple studies finding that between 23-28 percent of long COVID patients reported being out of work because of their symptoms. 'All told, the report concludes that between 1.04-1.26 million people could be out of work at any given point because of long COVID.' [...] 'Given the uncertainty around long COVID, it's hard to make any emphatic claims, but it is likely that persistent long COVID is having an impact on labor market participation, and potentially a large one.'"
American Action Forum
Holt, Christopher
2022-04-22
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Vaccine and Testing Mandate's Effect on the Labor Market
From the Introduction: "On Thursday November 4, the Biden Administration announced details of a new COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] vaccination requirement issued through the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The OSHA rule requires employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workers are fully vaccinated by January 4, 2022, or receive weekly COVID-19 tests thereafter. The rule would also mandate that employers give workers paid time off to get vaccinated. Over 84 million employees are covered under this rule. Vaccine mandates have been a contentious policy option, and 16 percent [hyperlink] of adults have said they will not be getting a vaccine. Further, an estimated 10-16 million employed adults (or up to 6.1 percent of the civilian noninstitutionalized population) have said they would leave their jobs if subject to a vaccine mandate (or weekly testing). A logical outcome of a sustained mandate would be that vaccine-hesitant workers move into small businesses (fewer than 100 employees) to avoid the requirements of the OSHA rule, or perhaps leave the workforce for some time. This analysis finds that 10-16 million workers are at risk for employment change because of the OSHA mandate. Thus, there is potential for large disruptive labor market impacts over the next several months that will also complicate the interpretation of labor market indicators."
American Action Forum
Soto, Isabel
2021-11-15
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Combatting COVID-19 After the Peak
From the Abstract: "[1] As the United States moves past peak health care resource use, policymakers must implement new policies that will provide a more sustainable control over the pandemic while allowing society to reopen. [2] A recent proposal from the Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University outlines a national syndromic surveillance system that would combine widespread testing and high agency coordination to allow for the rapid identification of and response to new outbreaks. [3] Such a surveillance system raises serious privacy concerns that policymakers must take into account through strict limitations on data use and sunsetting provisions."
American Action Forum
Strohman, Andrew
2020-04-16
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Potential Coronavirus Implications for the Congressional Review Act
From the Introduction "In the regulatory-policy world, the spring of a presidential year is normally a particularly important time. It represents a rough deadline that agencies must meet in order to avoid the potential reach of the Congressional Review Act's (CRA) 'look-back provision' that allows a new administration and Congress to repeal certain rules issued under the previous administration. The Trump Administration - in concert with a fully Republican Congress - applied this power in historic fashion to repeal a cadre of Obama-era regulations, effectively wiping away billions of dollars in regulatory burdens. While right now typically marks that deadline, these are not normal times. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic (and Congress's response to it) introduces a higher level of volatility to this year's CRA calculus that is worth further consideration."
American Action Forum
Goldbeck, Daniel
2020-04-23
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Impacts of the COVID-19 Immigration Suspension
From the Introduction: "Yesterday, President Trump signed an executive order suspending a portion of immigration into the United States. This order follows several steps that the Trump Administration took last month banning travelers from China, Iran, and 28 nations in Europe, as well as closing the border with both Canada and Mexico. The immigration suspension is much more limited than originally anticipated, only applying to approximately 32 percent of green card applicants. Even with these exceptions, however, the justification for the suspension is misguided, and the suspension is unlikely to have a beneficial impact on either the public's health or the economy. Furthermore, the order lays out explicit mechanisms for the suspension to be expanded in the future, and if it is expanded, such restrictions could hurt the economy's ability to recover from the current pandemic."
American Action Forum
Varas, Jacqueline
2020-04-23
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COVID-19 and the Fiscal Sustainability of Federal Health Care Programs
From the Document: "Over the course of the last month, Congress has enacted roughly $4 trillion in spending measures related to the public health and economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. And that's only the start: Politicians are already positioning themselves for a likely fourth phase of emergency spending. Much of this money has been devoted to the health care response, and health care will remain a priority for future spending, particularly the costs for the uninsured and newly uninsured. But all of this new spending is deficit spending, which points to the underlying question facing all of the United States' health care programs: How are we going to pay for them?"
American Action Forum
Holt, Christopher; Barnhorst, Margaret
2020-04-24
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Bridge to a Vaccine: Antiviral and Antibody Therapies for COVID-19
From the Introduction: "Emerging research suggests transmission of SARS-CoV-2 [severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2] (the specific virus causing the coronavirus pandemic) seems to occur when patients are asymptomatic, with some evidence suggesting transmission may even peak right before or around the time symptoms manifest. These data illuminate a gap in the effectiveness of a syndromic surveillance system, as such a system relies on the rapid transmission of data from largely symptomatic COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] cases to identify hotspots and facilitate contact tracing. As a vaccine is likely a year or two from full implementation, a hole exists in the United States' current approach to addressing the pandemic: how to treat the virus before a vaccine arrives. The answer lies in antiviral therapy development."
American Action Forum
Strohman, Andrew
2020-04-22
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Estimating the Cost of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act
From the Executive Summary: "Given the continued worsening of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States and around the world, Congress is negotiating a deal on an additional emergency response package that is expected to cost $183.8 billion, according to estimates by the American Action Forum. If an important restriction on firm sizes were to be eliminated, the total cost could exceed $350 billion. This package includes four key provisions: 1. Emergency paid sick leave and child care leave, which could cost between $40.9 billion and $118.4 billion, and possibly up to $282.5 billion if restrictions on firm size were eliminated; 2. Expanded Unemployment Insurance benefits, for which the government has allotted $1 billion; 3. Increased Medicaid funding and free testing for everyone: The federal government will cover a larger share of Medicaid expenses, which could increase costs by $56.3 billion, and another $1.3 billion is provided for health care services and testing costs; 4. Additional nutritional assistance: $1.25 billion in additional funding is provided for the Women, Infants, and Children program, The Emergency Food Assistance Program, and programs to provide meals for the elderly; loosened restrictions for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will allow for additional benefits to be provided at an estimated cost of $6.8 billion; states with schools experiencing closures of more than five days will also be able to provide benefits to cover the costs of school lunches that otherwise would have been provided."
American Action Forum
Soto, Isabel; Hayes, Tara O'Neill
2020-03-17
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Could Your Smart Phone Help in the Fight Against the COVID-19 Pandemic?
From the Document: "[1] Personal information, such as location and health data, can provide important insights that can improve public health responses to the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic. [2] Companies working to provide data are taking steps to use privacy-sensitive technology and allowing individuals to opt-in to the services. [3] Government data usage related to the COVID-19 pandemic should have limitations that protect civil liberties and prevent abusive government surveillance. During the pandemic, policymakers and experts have debated how governments should be able to use location data and other personal information to track the contacts of those diagnosed with COVID-19, identify potential hot spots, or enforce social distancing or quarantine requirements. South Korea and Israel have used location data for individual contact tracing and pushing notifications to self-quarantine. But left unchecked, such monitoring could devolve into intrusive government surveillance that could curtail civil liberties and lead to future abuse. Innovative solutions harnessing aggregate data or new uses of existing technologies like Bluetooth can enable a data-informed response to the pandemic, but will require legal safeguards around the use and collection of this data by the government to limit the risk to civil liberties."
American Action Forum
Huddleston, Jennifer
2020-04-15
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Hazard Pay During COVID-19
From the Executive Summary: "[1] Workers in essential occupations are being provided little additional support during the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic, and low-wage workers are likely making less than individuals on unemployment; some policymakers are proposing hazard pay--additional financial support often used in industries with high probability of death or injury--to compensate essential workers for the risks they are taking. [2] At the federal level, Democrats have introduced a bill and President Trump has voiced his support of additional pay for workers on the frontlines of the epidemic, while several localities have already approved hazard pay with varying levels of pay increases. [3] Nationwide hazard pay could be distributed as a percentage of income or as a flat rate and could cost up to $148.9 billion with a 25 percent hourly wage increase, $298 billion with a 50 percent hourly percent wage increase, or $398.9 billion at a $13 an hour increase if it were offered from March to the end of September. [4] In crafting a hazard-pay policy, policymakers will need to consider the length of time during which hazard pay will be provided and which essential workers will be eligible to receive it."
American Action Forum
Soto, Isabel
2020-04-10
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Data Protection and the Pandemic: What We Can Learn for Future Policy
From the Introduction: "The ongoing COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic provides a useful case study for the impact of privacy regulations. U.S. policymakers have been considering federal data protection legislation for some time, and whether the current less regulatory approach remains appropriate. The European Union's (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provides an example of a sweeping and highly regulatory approach to data privacy and security while the less stringent approach in the United States leaves more room for innovation, flexibility, and choice. The COVID-19 pandemic illustrates the tradeoffs associated with stringent policies and the different choices individuals may make when it comes to their data privacy, highlighting the value of a flexible and less prescriptive approach to privacy regulation."
American Action Forum
Huddleston, Jennifer
2020-04-08
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International Response to COVID-19
From the Executive Summary: "[1] In addition to significantly harming the U.S. economy, COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] threatens to shrink the global economy. [2] In response, nations around the world have instituted similar measures to what the United States has done, such as cash transfers, loan guarantees, lower interest rates, and expanded welfare programs. [3] International organizations also have a vital role to play; they are working to dispatch emergency aid for health spending and to support local economies, with their aid mostly targeted to the poorest populations."
American Action Forum
Varas, Jacqueline
2020-04-14
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Implications of the Regulatory Relief Executive Order
From the Executive Summary: "[1] President Trump issued a new executive order that asks agencies to identify possible deregulatory actions and to employ enforcement discretion in order to help the economy recover from COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] . [2] The most meaningful part of the executive order is the provision on enforcement discretion, which will more immediately provide regulatory relief than unwinding or permanently waiving regulations through a notice-and-comment rulemaking process. [3] While the executive order cites COVID-19 and the economic recovery from the pandemic as its impetus, the order sets out policies likely to remain in place through the remainder of the Trump Administration."
American Action Forum
Bosch, Dan
2020-05-20
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U.S. Dependence on Chinese Pharmaceuticals is Overstated
From the Executive Summary: "[1] The COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic has resulted in shortages of medical supplies that are leading some to question the United States' reliance on China for medicine and medical goods. [2] In reality, U.S. supply chains are well diversified, with China supplying only 18 percent of total active pharmaceutical ingredient imports, 9 percent of total antibiotic imports, and less than 1 percent of total vaccine imports. [3] Moreover, U.S. production of pharmaceutical goods is often understated: 70 percent of essential medical equipment is manufactured in the United States, and 70 percent of total antibiotic spending and 50 percent of total vaccine spending is on U.S.-made products. [4] The best way to fight current and future pandemics is not to reduce the supply of medical goods with tariffs and Buy American laws, but instead to continue the United States' deregulatory efforts and diversify U.S. supply chains even further."
American Action Forum
Varas, Jacqueline
2020-05-20
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Threat of Bankruptcies in the Petroleum Producing Industry
From the Executive Summary: "[1] Despite some rebound in oil prices since the start of the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic, significant numbers of bankruptcies are expected among oil and gas producers in the coming year, even with expanded access to the Paycheck Protection Program and forthcoming Federal Reserve loans. [2] This spate of bankruptcies threatens the stability of the resource-rich regions that rely on oil and natural gas production to anchor their economies, but also the economy at large. [3] As industry-specific assistance has proven largely unsuccessful, forthcoming rounds of COVID-19 relief legislation should ensure that those regions with growing unemployment in production have adequate programming to support workers."
American Action Forum
Czapla, Ewelina
2020-05-20
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State Unemployment Benefits and Returning to Work
From the Executive Summary: "[1] The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act created a $600 federal supplement to state unemployment insurance payments, which will expire on July 31st, but as states begin to reopen, this supplement will create a disincentive for people to return to work. [2] Nationally 63 percent of workers currently make more on unemployment with the federal supplement than they would working, but even if the federal supplement is reduced to $100 a week, 25 percent of the U.S. workforce could still make more on unemployment than returning to work. [3] Due to variations between states, changing the amount of the federal supplement will affect the incentives for some workers more than others, indicating that a uniform federal policy might not be the best approach."
American Action Forum
Soto, Isabel
2020-05-13
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Timeline: The Federal Reserve Responds to the Threat of Coronavirus
From the Executive Summary: "[1] On Sunday, March 15, the Federal Reserve embarked on a large-scale program employing emergency powers in order to stabilize a tumultuous economy under pressure from the novel coronavirus COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019]. [2] Chief among these emergency actions are cutting interest rates effectively to zero and a $700 billion round of quantitative easing. [3] Despite these actions, stock prices on Monday took their steepest dive since 1987's Black Monday, and it remains to be seen whether enough liquidity has been injected into the market to prevent the financial system from widespread failures."
American Action Forum
Wade, Thomas
2020
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Outsized Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Minority Communities
From the Introduction: "The current pandemic is highlighting--and perhaps worsening--many of the existing health and economic disparities that racial and ethnic minorities in the United States experience. These disparities are impacting and being impacted by people's health, living environment, access to nutrition, and educational resources, and they are driven largely by the type of job one holds. Understanding the cause and effects of these outcomes is critical to an informed and effective response. This information can help policymakers appropriately target assistance now and amend existing policies to better prepare for and prevent such outcomes in the future."
American Action Forum
O'Neill Hayes, Tara
2020-05-12
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Reducing Uncertainty and Restoring Confidence During the Coronavirus Recession
From the Testimony: "Chairman Lee, Vice Chairman Beyer, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the privilege of participating in this hearing on addressing the nation's economic crisis. In this short testimony, I want to make four main points: [1] The economy and, especially, the labor market entered 2020 in good condition, but have been buffeted by an economic downdraft of unprecedented scale and unique origins; [2] The policy response thus far by the Federal Reserve and Congress has been correspondingly of unprecedented scale and has prevented an enormous amount of distress and economic damage; [3] Examining the data from the onset of the recession highlights the importance of supply conditions and policies that assist businesses and their customers to operate in the presence of the virus; and [4] There does not appear to be a strong case for 'automatic stabilizers' in the form of expanded mandatory spending[.]"
American Action Forum
Holtz-Eakin, Douglas
2020-07-30
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AAF Exchange -- Ep. 40: The Economic Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis (Pt.17) [audio]
From the Audio Description: "What has the U.S. done right in response to COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019]? Where could the U.S. have improved its response? AAF [American Action Forum] President Douglas Holtz-Eakin discusses this and the negotiations over the next legislative package in this episode of The AAF Exchange." The duration of this audio is 22 minutes and 56 seconds.
American Action Forum
2020-07-16
