22 Time March 15/March 22, 2021
Tucked in The shadow of The TeTons, The Town of
Jackson, Wyo., and surrounding Teton County is home to fewer
than 25,000 full-time residents, but annually hosts more than
2.5 million visitors. The valley’s natural beauty attracts an in-
flux of tourists, who in turn are responsible for roughly 30% of
the region’s jobs and more than $1 billion in annual revenue.
For the past year, visitors came with an unwelcome price tag for
locals: “Every time in this pandemic that we’ve had an influx of
visitation... it follows with an uptick in [COVID-19] cases and
hospitalizations,” says Dr. Jeff Greenbaum, medical director at
the emergency department for St. John’s hospital and the Jack-
son Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR) ski patrol.
With just one major hospital and eight emergency-room
physicians serving Teton County, any increase in COVID-19
cases is cause for concern. And in January, following the
Christmas and New Year’s tourism rush, cases in Teton
County skyrocketed to some of their highest levels since the
pandemic began. As cases surged, the county reissued a se-
ries of guidelines that kept indoor gatherings capped at 25%
and limited outdoor gatherings to 250 guests. Since a high in
mid-January, new caseloads have declined, and the local hos-
pital seems unlikely to be overrun. Still, Greenbaum posits
that part of the reason St. John’s hasn’t been overwhelmed by
cases is that many of the tourists who get COVID-19 in Teton
County might not stay to get treatment in Teton County.
The ski resort, hotels, bars and restaurants remain open
in the town, and JHMR is optimistic that it can operate the
entire season, trusting in the protocols it has put in place to
protect both guests and staff. But at a time when millions of
Americans are out of work, daily infection rates remain high,
and thousands across the country are dying daily from the
virus, should the wealthy indulge in an après-ski, looking
out onto the beautiful Teton mountains, all while potentially
shuttling COVID-19 into and out of Jackson?
“This place is preTTy much a gigantic country club, re-
lying on second-home owners and tourism for its revenue,”
says Jesse Bryant, a doctoral candidate in American sociol-
ogy at Yale University and creator of Yonder Lies, a podcast
exploring the history of Jackson Hole. “But Jackson has to
balance the ultra-wealthy with the real reality of people
eking out a living here.” Teton County has the largest in-
come gap of any county in the U.S., with the top 1% making
almost 150 times more than the other 99%. From mountain
guides to house cleaners to bartenders, much of the employ-
ment in Jackson cannot easily be transitioned to remote
work, meaning that Jackson’s working class are among the
most susceptible to unemployment from the pandemic.
All across America, the costs of the pandemic are being
borne by the poorest members of society; a Pew Research
Center survey from September found that about 50% of
low-income Americans say they or someone in their house-
hold has lost employment or taken a pay cut because of the
In Jackson, a ski town
struggles for balance
By Lucas Isakowitz
pandemic, and similarly, about 50% of
low-income Americans report having
trouble paying their bills since the pan-
demic started.
During much of the spring and sum-
mer, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and
Economic Security Act passed by the
federal government at the start of the
pandemic had provided $600 in ad-
ditional unemployment payments per
week, assuring many local and sea-
sonal workers that their livelihoods
were safe for a few months even if their
jobs weren’t. But almost a year into the
pandemic, Jackson’s working class are
left with far fewer options: federal un-
employment relief ended in July, and
when it restarted in January, it dropped
to $300. Meanwhile, state unemploy-
ment benefits in Wyoming, although
extended by 13 weeks, dry up after 39
weeks. “Many of the workers here don’t
have a six-month buffer saved up,” says
one restaurant worker who wished to
remain anonymous for risk of losing
their job, “so while tourism presents a
risk, we’re willing to take it to keep our
paychecks coming in.”
JHMR has been doing nearlyTheBrief Postcard
RYAN DORGAN
△
JHMR opened
on Thanksgiving
for the 2020–21
winter season with
increased COVID-19
precautions