Paper for Groundwork Collaborative: full version here. Executive Summary As the country crests the most devastating wave yet of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is growing optimism that the new administration will act quickly to stem the economic crisis: both by deploying the federal government’s leadership to control the pandemic itself and by using the federal […]
California’s 2021-22 budget will have an enormous impact on the nature of California’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Governor’s 2021-22 budget proposal would restore some critical funding for public health and education, but it will not be sufficient to get California’s economy and low-income Californians back on track. To avoid a prolonged economic downturn, […]
Update of my July data brief on the public sector impacts of COVID-19, with October data
This brief summarizes the Great Recession’s impact on public employment and the public sector job losses driven by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Our analysis points to the importance of focusing on the public sector as policymakers respond to the COVID-19 crisis.
Published May 14, 2020 as part of the UC Berkeley Labor Center’s Covid-19 Series: Resources, Data, and Analysis for California. The economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have been severe: at least 30 million people have lost their jobs and millions of others have seen their incomes decline. Governments are spending billions of dollars on public health and the safety net. […]