A resilient city is defined by “the policy-induced ability of an (urban) economy to withstand or recover from the effects of shocks.” It took many U.S. cities years to recover from the 2008 Great Recession and Wall Street meltdown. Today, the coronavirus pandemic and recession pose an even more severe test of the resilience of…
Publications
The Covid-19 pandemic and recession will leave lasting marks on many major U.S. institutions, and higher education is no exception. Last spring, as most of the economy shut down, America’s colleges and universities also closed their campuses and shifted to online, video-teaching, or some combination of the two. The experience likely will trigger a searching…
The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the fragility of the United States electoral voting system. Polling places, which are often densely packed indoor spaces, represent an acute public health danger. Yet, many states do not have the infrastructure in place to adapt to this situation, and it has thrown the health of Americans and our…
Press
Independent workers face a dilemma where they cannot currently receive benefit payments from companies without risking their independent status. WASHINGTON, D.C. - A new report from the Progressive Policy Institute examines the possibility of creating a way to regulate platforms that would preserve the flexible nature of independent workers and the benefits to our economy…
At the end of next month, several economic support programs created by the CARES Act in March will expire. House Democrats have moved to extend and expand these supports through January 2021 with the $3 trillion HEROES Act. Senate Republicans, however, have used fiscal cost as a pretext to oppose or scale back this and other potential future…
As governors start lifting stay-at-home orders, businesses, schools, non-profits and houses of worship are trying to figure out how to reopen safely. A driving concern for many employers has been the fear of getting slapped with lawsuits if their workers or customers contract COVID-19. It’s a reasonable fear; the pandemic is already inflaming America’s legendary…
Blog
Given the ongoing pandemic, capital investment is more important than ever before. Hundreds of billions of dollars of investment by broadband providers enabled the U.S. Internet to respond magnificently to soaring demand when the pandemic hit. On the other hand, some of the sectors that have struggled the most—such as medical equipment and supplies and…
This past weekend a Wall Street Journal piece quoted me on ecommerce jobs: One economist who has looked at these trends has concluded something surprising: When you include all the jobs in fulfillment, delivery, and related roles, e-commerce has created more jobs between 2007 and January 2020 than bricks-and-mortar retailers lost, says Michael Mandel, chief…
The Covid recession is the most uneven economic downturn in history. Take a look at the following table, which we calculated from last Thursday's employment data. The table compares occupational employment in the second quarter of 2020 with the second quarter of 2019. On the one hand, some occupations, like computer and mathematics-related jobs,…
