The Preexisting Conditions of the Coronavirus Pandemic
RFF Senior Fellow Alan Krupnick was quoted in a story by WIRED about the unequal distribution of economic burdens caused and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even that burden [of the economic effects of lost income and a shorter and less healthy life] is shared unfairly. “By shutting down the economy, we hurt poor people and people of color more, economically, than by keeping it open,” says Alan Krupnick, an economist and senior fellow at Resources for the Future. “But you can’t open up the economy until people have a reasonable expectation that they’re going to be safe when they go to a restaurant or bar, or go to work. The disease needs to get taken care of first so that the economy can blossom.” That’s an income effect, and it creates a feedback loop. Trying to deal with the effects of the pandemic after it has already swallowed the economy makes the economic effects worse on the most vulnerable … which means that to survive financially they have to expose themselves to more risk … which makes their comorbidities potentially more dangerous.