Desmond describes some pretty amazing economic outcomes that accompanied the Covid pandemic which were overlooked by many of us who were focused on our own vulnerabilities at the time, and which have now been largely swept aside by other concerns of the moment. The opening lines of the review provide a good summary of the messages of the three books:
"In normal times, the United States stands out among advanced democracies for its high levels of poverty and its low levels of aid. In 2019, right before Covid struck, America’s relative child poverty rate resembled that of Mexico or Bulgaria. Then, during the pandemic, the federal government enacted three enormous and historic relief bills. These reduced child poverty by an astonishing 57.5 percent, more than doubling the government’s typical impact and suddenly placing the United States alongside Germany and Switzerland on this score..."
5 comments:
I wonder if child poverty changed for the better in Mississippi? The state government refused to expand Medicaid, which makes many of the poor even less able to secure health care. In Vicksburg, the schools offer breakfast and lunch to all children. But I do not know how long that food program had been in effect. Inadequate health care and the continuing denigration of the poor in Southern States is an outrage.
I'm going to try to find the books reviewed to get a better idea of the actual implementation of the fed programs, but I imagine there are other sources on the subject online as well. I could not find the books mentioned in the review in our library, but I'm qoing to request that they be acquired.
I was also impressed that the rate of homelessness took quite a dip. I think the thing that is illustrated is that a lot of seemingly intractable social problems are quite solvable with some appropriate income redistribution.
Here are the authors and titles of the reviewed books:
The Pandemic Paradox: How the Covid Crisis Made Americans More Financially Secure
by Scott Fulford
Princeton University Press, 376 pp., $35.00
The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide
by Steven W. Thrasher
Celadon, 334 pp., $29.99; $19.99 (paper)
Poverty in the Pandemic: Policy Lessons from Covid-19
362.1962 THRASHER
Poverty in the Pandemic: Policy Lessons from Covid-19
by Zachary Parolin
Russell Sage Foundation, 269 pp., $42.50 (paper)
(I did find the Thrasher book, though not in Kindle format.)
Oh oh, these are heavy duty reading. I am not sure if income redistribution is the right approach. Better and fairer allocation of existing resources could go a long way. There is plenty of money sloshing around in the USA.
I'm basically thinking that a good first step would be to subject the billionaires to an appropriate tax rate. Beyond that there are plenty of opportunities. Medicare for all could be implemented with just that step.
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