The pandemic paradox : how the COVID crisis made Americans more financially secure / Scott Fulford.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fulford, Scott, 1979- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-2023.

Home economics.

Flexible work arrangements.

United States--Economic conditions--21st century.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (392 p.) : 58 b/w illus. 7 tables.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2023]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Why most Americans’ finances improved during the worst economic contraction since the Great Depression—and the policy choices that made this possibleIn March 2020, economic and social life across the United States came to an abrupt halt as the country tried to slow the spread of COVID-19. In the worst economic contraction since the Great Depression, twenty-two million people lost their jobs between mid-March and mid-April of 2020. And yet somehow the finances of most Americans improved during the pandemic—savings went up, debts went down, and fewer people had trouble paying their bills. In The Pandemic Paradox, economist Scott Fulford explains this seeming contradiction, describing how the pandemic reshaped the American economy. As Americans grappled with remote work, “essential” work, and closed schools, three massive pandemic relief bills, starting with the CARES Act on March 27, 2020, managed to protect many of America’s most vulnerable.Fulford draws from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's “Making Ends Meet” surveys—which he helped design—to interweave macroeconomic trends in spending, saving, and debt with stories of individual Americans’ economic lives during the pandemic. We meet Winona, who quit her job to take care of her children; Marvin, who retired early and worried that his savings wouldn’t last; Lisa, whose expenses went up after her grown kids (and their dog) moved back home; and many others. What the statistics and the stories show, Fulford argues, is that a better, fairer, more productive economy is still possible. The success of pandemic relief policy proves that Americans’ economic fragility is not an unsolvable problem. But we have to choose to solve it.

Contents:

Cover

Contents

1. Introduction

Part I. The Pandemic Economic Collapse

2. The Bottom Falls Out

3. Making Ends Meet before the Pandemic

4. The CARES Act

Part II. The Pandemic Settles In

5. Muddling Through

6. Pandemic Relief after the CARES Act

7. Left Behind, Again

Part III. The Pandemic's Aftermath

8. Work from Home: The Past and Future of Work

9. The Long Term

10. Struggling Back to (a New?) Normal

11. The Pandemic Paradox

Epilogue: October 2022

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-691-24534-7

OCLC:

1356574971