Normal view MARC view ISBD view

The pandemic paradox : how the COVID crisis made Americans more financially secure / Scott Fulford.

By: Fulford, Scott Lansing, 1979- [author.].
Publisher: Princeton : Princeton University Press, ©2023Description: viii, 376 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.Content type: text Media type: unmediated Carrier type: volumeISBN: 9780691245324; 0691245320.Subject(s): Since 2020 | COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- -- Economic aspects -- United States | Pandémnnnie de COVID-19, 2020- -- Aspect économique -- États-Unis | Economics | United States -- Economic conditions -- 21st century | United StatesGenre/Form: Print books.
Contents:
Introduction -- Part I: The pandemic economic collapse. The bottom falls out -- Making ends meet before the pandemic -- The CARES act -- Part II: The pandemic settles in. Muddling through -- Pandemic relief after the CARES act -- Left behind, again -- Part III: The pandemic's aftermath. Work from home: the past and future of work -- The long term -- Struggling back to (a new?) normal -- The pandemic paradox -- Epilogue: October 2022.
Summary: "In March 2020, economic and social life across the United States came to an abrupt halt as the country tried to slow the spread of COVID-19. In the worst economic contraction since the Great Depression, twenty-two million people lost their jobs between mid-March and mid-April of 2020. And yet somehow the finances of most Americans improved during the pandemic--savings went up, debts went down, and fewer people had trouble paying their bills. In The Pandemic Paradox, economist Scott Fulford explains this seeming contradiction, describing how the pandemic reshaped the American economy. As Americans grappled with remote work, "essential" work, and closed schools, three massive pandemic relief bills, starting with the CARES Act on March 27, 2020, managed to protect many of America's most vulnerable. Fulford draws from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's "Making Ends Meet" surveys--which he helped design--to interweave macroeconomic trends in spending, saving, and debt with stories of individual Americans' economic lives during the pandemic. We meet Winona, who quit her job to take care of her children; Marvin, who retired early and worried that his savings wouldn't last; Lisa, whose expenses went up after her grown kids (and their dog) moved back home; and many others. What the statistics and the stories show, Fulford argues, is that a better, fairer, more productive economy is still possible. The success of pandemic relief policy proves that Americans' economic fragility is not an unsolvable problem. But we have to choose to solve it."--Amazon.com.
    average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 301-362) and index.

Introduction -- Part I: The pandemic economic collapse. The bottom falls out -- Making ends meet before the pandemic -- The CARES act -- Part II: The pandemic settles in. Muddling through -- Pandemic relief after the CARES act -- Left behind, again -- Part III: The pandemic's aftermath. Work from home: the past and future of work -- The long term -- Struggling back to (a new?) normal -- The pandemic paradox -- Epilogue: October 2022.

"In March 2020, economic and social life across the United States came to an abrupt halt as the country tried to slow the spread of COVID-19. In the worst economic contraction since the Great Depression, twenty-two million people lost their jobs between mid-March and mid-April of 2020. And yet somehow the finances of most Americans improved during the pandemic--savings went up, debts went down, and fewer people had trouble paying their bills. In The Pandemic Paradox, economist Scott Fulford explains this seeming contradiction, describing how the pandemic reshaped the American economy. As Americans grappled with remote work, "essential" work, and closed schools, three massive pandemic relief bills, starting with the CARES Act on March 27, 2020, managed to protect many of America's most vulnerable. Fulford draws from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's "Making Ends Meet" surveys--which he helped design--to interweave macroeconomic trends in spending, saving, and debt with stories of individual Americans' economic lives during the pandemic. We meet Winona, who quit her job to take care of her children; Marvin, who retired early and worried that his savings wouldn't last; Lisa, whose expenses went up after her grown kids (and their dog) moved back home; and many others. What the statistics and the stories show, Fulford argues, is that a better, fairer, more productive economy is still possible. The success of pandemic relief policy proves that Americans' economic fragility is not an unsolvable problem. But we have to choose to solve it."--Amazon.com.

Copyright © 2020 Alfaisal University Library. All Rights Reserved.
Tel: +966 11 2158948 Fax: +966 11 2157910 Email:
librarian@alfaisal.edu