Sustaining Capitalism

As Americans prepare to vote this fall, COVID-19 is weighing on and shaping election preparations around the country. With the first absentee ballots reaching voters in September, the American Enterprise Institute's Kevin Kosar joins to discuss safe and secure elections in the time of a pandemic and the case for expanded access to absentee ballots. Additionally, Kevin discusses trends in congressional capacity and its potential impact on the COVID-19 response.

A decade after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the COVID-19 pandemic is testing the US health insurance system amid a public health and economic crisis. Christen Linke Young and Matthew Fielder, fellows with the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy, join to discuss stresses, gaps, and successes in maintaining Americans' consistent access to affordable, high-quality healthcare coverage, and how COVID-19 may inform the outlook for policy changes in the months ahead.

The public health and economic shocks of COVID-19 have disrupted and threatened the lives and livelihoods of a broad swath of people, but few groups have been as sharply impacted as older Americans. Ben Harris, Executive Director of the Kellogg School of Management's Public-Private Interface, joins to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on older workers and retirees, and how it may affect retirement for years to come.

COVID-19 has caused hardship and suffering throughout the US but some states and regions were likely better positioned to deal with the public health and economic crisis before it arrived. Dr. Joshua McCabe, Assistant Dean for Social Sciences at Endicott College and Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center, joins to discuss how differences in state and local finances may be affecting responses to, and recovery from, the pandemic, and what the Federal government is doing about it.

With COVID-19 continuing to pose a severe public health threat, the US is headed "back-to-school" under clouded circumstances likely to worry students, parents, and educators alike. As policymakers at all levels attempt to weigh evidence, assess risks, and plot the best path forward, Dr. Nora Gordon, Associate Professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, joins to discuss school decision-making, budget pressures, and federal funding supports.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted schools, workplaces, and other daily arrangements that helped families balance employment with care responsibilities, casting a spotlight on the struggles of millions of Americans trying to make it all work. Vicki Shabo, from New America, and Chantel Boyens, from the Urban Institute, join to discuss the challenges facing caregivers, how it affects US efforts to "re-open," and what steps government and businesses have taken, or may take in the future, to help.

The COVID-19 pandemic—with its public health, social, and economic shocks—appeared destined to severely harm the most vulnerable Americans. In response, the US Congress enacted one of the largest assistance packages in its history. Northwestern Professor Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, Director and Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research, joins to discuss what we know about how the COVID-19 crisis has affected low-income families to date and the outlook for US poverty ahead.

The COVID-19 pandemic has delivered an unprecedentedly rapid shock to the US economy, sending unemployment rates to levels not seen since the Great Depression. In response, Congress enacted—on a temporary basis—one of the largest Federal expansions of unemployment benefits in US history. With the expiration of some of those changes already approaching, Michele Evermore, Senior Policy Analyst at the National Election Law Project joins to discuss changes in unemployment benefits over time, the pandemic response, and the decisions policymakers face.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the US labor market is experiencing a shock sharper than any in living memory. While likely understating the number of people at least temporarily sidelined, the official unemployment rate rocketed from close to a 50 year low to its highest level since the Great Depression in a matter of weeks. For black communities, the public health-induced whiplash into recession, almost exactly ten years after the peak of black unemployment in the wake of the Great Recession, poses a severe threat to the wellbeing of many families. With few black workers typically able to work from home and many in high-risk but low-income essential jobs, and with many households holding little wealth to cushion a financial shock, the stakes for the US policy response to COVID-19 are extremely high. Jessica Fulton, Vice President of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, joins to discuss the COVID-19 challenge for black communities and how it may it shape the future outlook for many vulnerable workers.

The COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting many aspects of American life, and its future trajectory is hard to predict. As CED trustees Bob Kueppers and Ron Klein wrote in a recent op-ed, "While we cannot know the state of the pandemic at the time of the November elections, policymakers and election officials must act now to ensure that COVID-19 is neither a public health threat nor a deterrent to participation." Meredith McGehee, Executive Director of Issue One, joins to discuss the risks COVID-19 could pose to safe and fair elections and steps the US can take to prepare for those challenges.