financial intervention in history — a full-scale
drive that includes mandating sick leave for
some, distributing $1,200 checks to individuals,
allocating rescue aid to employers and
expanding unemployment benefits to try to
help America survive the crisis.
Yet those measures are only temporary. And for
millions of newly unemployed, they may not
be enough.
The disaster that is igniting what’s likely to
be a deep recession also raises the question
of what happens once life begins to edge
back to normal. Will the U.S. remain an outlier
among wealthy countries in providing limited
protections for the financially vulnerable? Or
will it expand the social safety net, as it did after
the Great Depression of the 1930s but largely
did not after the Great Recession that ended
in 2009?
“Maybe there will be a cultural shift,” said Elise
Gould, senior economist at the progressive
Economic Policy Institute. “I see it as a great
opening to try to (provide) those labor
protections that low-wage workers didn’t
have before.’’
Gould notes that the government’s suddenly
expanded role now in distributing relief checks,
expanding health benefits and sick leave
and supplementing state unemployment aid
would make it easier to extend such programs
even after a recession has ended. Doing so
could have the longer-term effect of reducing
financial inequalities.
Whether the government ends up adopting
any long-lasting policy reforms will depend in
part on which party controls the White House