How Covid has Affected the Economy and Families Financially?

 By: Nathan Schroeder

March, 2020, our lives as we all knew it was flipped upside down and we didn’t know what had just hit us. The Covid 19 pandemic took everyone by surprise. Sports being cancelled, restaurants being closed, businesses cancelling work days, school shutting down, our lives were put on pause. Confusion, frustration, and a sense of hopelessness set over every single American as a fear of our health and the health of our elders was in jeopardy. Masks, hand sanitizer, protective gear, all became the new normal in order to protect ourselves from this mysterious virus. While our main priority was our health, our economy was crashing and people were losing money like they were just throwing it out of the car on a freeway. The stock market crashed, jobs were lost, people couldn’t work, and no money was circulating. People who were living paycheck to paycheck didn’t know how they would put the next meal on their table. It was very stressful and the pandemic is still showing an impact on families today. 

Due to the pandemic and the shutdown, the U.S. economy took a major hit and was the worst that it has been in awhile. Covid stopped 113 consecutive months of job growth with about 20.5 million jobs being lost in the process. The biggest loss of jobs was in the nation's industrial production which employs nearly 13 million workers. Due to the loss of jobs it slowed down the circulation of money which ultimately caused our economy to take a hit like it had never before in the history of the United States.

With all of the jobs being lost due to the pandemic, it had a major impact on people and families in being able to generate a source of income to be able to pay bills and buy food. At the beginning of the pandemic until now, nearly 70 million Americans had filed for unemployment which makes up for about 40% of the nation's workforce. With this, many jobs were being lost and companies were going out of business. It has questioned many as to how we will get those jobs back so that people are able to get back on their feet and able to provide for themselves. Slowly but surely the unemployment rate over the past couple of months has been declining resulting in more Americans getting jobs and therefore more money being circulated which in the end will help boost our economy. 

Now throughout the pandemic the government had acknowledged the amount of job loss and how much people and families were struggling due to the lack of income and started to come out with stimulus checks. A stimulus check is a check that is sent to a taxpayer from the government in order to stimulate the economy by providing money for citizens. These checks became very hopeful for people who got hit hard by the pandemic and didn’t have enough money to pay rent or buy groceries. The stimulus checks were even sent to people who were still in jobs, and not by the fact that these people needed the money, but the government knew that they would spend, therefore helping businesses that were hurting, overall, boosting the economy.

The pandemic has negatively impacted every American in some way shape or form whether it was physically, mentally, or economically. If we were to take a positive from it or something we can learn, it is that we never know when a financial emergency will take place. Knowing that it is always smart to keep a savings account of money that you are able to tap into in a situation like the pandemic that has caused job loss, stock market crash, and a slowed down economy. 

Works Cited

Bauer, Lauren, et al. “Ten Facts about COVID-19 and the U.S. Economy.” Brookings, 

Brookings, 2 Feb. 2021, www.brookings.edu/research/ten-facts-about-covid-19-and-the-u-s-economy/#:~:te

Kelly, Jack. “803,000 Americans Filed For Unemployment Last Week: 70 Million Sought 

Unemployment Benefits Since The Pandemic.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 23 Dec. 

2020