Blog

In this piece, Lauren Bauer presents new evidence that almost 18 percent of children in the US did not have sufficient food as recently as the third week in June during the COVID-19 pandemic, meriting a substantial and immediate public investment.

Since the March Employment Situation, the number of respondents reporting as "employed but absent from work due to other reasons" has risen as a share of the labor force. In this blog, Lauren Bauer, Wendy Edelberg, Jimmy O'Donnell, and Jay Shambaugh explore the nature and magnitude of this phenomenon and analyze who these "potentially misclassified" respondents are.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, broad-based income support through both direct checks and unemployment insurance have been essential in limiting the income losses. However in this blog post, Jana Parsons shows that more can be done to provide relief for families in need, with TANF as a key and underutilized part of the solution.

In this analysis, Ryan Nunn, Jimmy O'Donnell, and Jay Shambaugh consider several policy options that could help boost workers’ wages. The authors also provide a categorization of which workers qualify as essential—performing functions society urgently needs that must be done in person—and then detail their incomes and their demographic characteristics.

The rapid contraction of the economy this spring has shattered records for the speed of onset of a recession. One of the most economically important pieces of the nearly $3 trillion policy response has been the rapid expansion of unemployment insurance (UI). Our preliminary calculations suggest that UI offset a small portion of personal income loss in March 2020, but roughly half of lost wages and salaries in April.

This blog post explores two important labor market disadvantages observed for nontraditional workers: more volatile hours and less health insurance coverage.

In this blog post, Lauren Bauer documents new evidence from two nationally representative surveys that were initiated to provide up-to-date estimates of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the incidence of food insecurity.

In this blog post, Hamilton Project Director Jay Shambaugh argues for the use of economic data-based triggers to ensure appropriate fiscal support that aligns with economic conditions. These triggers will allow for quick policy activation, faster implementation facilitated by pre-planning, and sustained policy support that lasts as long as needed.

The U.S. unemployment insurance (UI) system replaces some of the earnings of workers who have lost their jobs, helping them to stay afloat during tough economic times. But the UI system can also support workers and employers as they reduce, rather than eliminate, employees’ work hours.

If the COVID-19 pandemic can be controlled, good policy may be able to steer to a quick return from the economic shock. Policymakers have already stepped up, but they will need to do more to prevent this recession from causing even more damage.

Hamilton Project researchers Ryan Nunn and Jana Parsons show that unemployment duration is substantially shorter for workers who are temporarily laid off and provides hope that employment relationships can be maintained after a temporary shutdown of the economy.

Jay Shambaugh offers answers to frequently asked questions about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the U.S. economy and the implementation of various fiscal and monetary policy tools used in response to the crisis.

In this blog post, Jay Shambaugh presents policy suggestions that argue for funding testing, creating and funding sick leave for many workers, and providing funds to states via Medicaid funds.

Ryan Nunn argues that in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the UI system requires a number of reforms to support families and the broader economy. 

Lauren Bauer and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach detail policy responses tailored to the COVID-19 pandemic to support food security, particularly for households with children.

Hamilton Project Director Jay Shambaugh comments on the COVID-19 virus and how economic policies with automatic triggers can alleviate the financial burden of the epidemic.

The final rule on work requirement waivers, released on December 4, 2019, weakens SNAP's role as an automatic stabilizer and a critical element of the safety net. The Hamilton Project analysis finds that the final rule would respond more slowly to a recession than current rules as well as the proposed rule, would curb a state’s ability to apply for work requirement waivers when its economy is weak or relatively weak compared to the overall national economy, and would severely limit access to SNAP during a sluggish recovery.

Much of the nation’s economic activity is made possible by roads and railways. As policymakers consider new directions for infrastructure policy, The Hamilton Project outlines investment proposals that could facilitate economic growth and promote climate resiliency, as well as minimize the damage of a recession as an effective fiscal stimulus.

Despite strong GDP growth and the longest uninterrupted streak of job growth in recorded U.S. history, another economic downturn will be inevitable. The Hamilton Project explores the most direct approaches to identify recessions—including a rapidly increasing unemployment rate—in order to plan a timely response that can mitigate damages.

Despite improvements across a number of economic indicators, rates of child experience of and exposure to food insecurity have failed to see reductions in the past three years. In this analysis, Lauren Bauer and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach explore the various ways children experience food insecurity, as well as its impacts nationwide from pre-recession to today.