khalilhumam

[khalilhumam]

Open letter to the incoming Biden administration on Next Generation Community Schools

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/open-letter-to-the-incoming-biden-administration-on-next-generation-community-schools/

Open letter to the incoming Biden administration on Next Generation Community Schools

By Rebecca Winthrop We, the undersigned members of the Brookings Institution’s Task Force on Next Generation Community Schools, applaud President-elect Biden’s stated commitment to expanding community schools. We believe that with the right policy actions, this work could be scaled to a next generation of community schools, serving millions of students nationwide, which can address the impact of COVID-19 and combat educational inequity long term. In community schools, every family and community member is an asset that can be leveraged to build on students’ strengths so that every student can learn, thrive, and reach their full potential. The Community School Coordinator partners closely with the principal, school staff, students, and families, and plays a central role in harnessing community resources to support whole child development. Learning Policy Institute and the National Education Policy Center conducted a review of the research on community schools and their implementation in a variety of settings across the country—from urban to suburban to rural. They determined that while community schools look a little different in each community due to local context, there are four core community school pillars that drive student outcomes:

Expanded and enriched learning time. This includes after-school and summer programs, as well as enriching the curriculum through culturally relevant, real-world learning opportunities.

Active family and community engagement. This includes both service provision and meaningful partnership with parents, family, and community members to support children’s learning.

Collaborative leadership and practices. This includes the coordination of community school services, as well as site-based, cross-stakeholder leadership teams and teacher learning communities.

Integrated student supports. This includes supports such as mental and physical health care, nutrition support, and housing assistance.

The synergy and interaction among the four pillars create the necessary conditions for learning both in and beyond the classroom. We recommend the scaling of community schools as a central strategy in both the recovery from COVID-19 and in building back better and more inclusive school systems. The unprecedented impact of COVID-19 on our students, families, and communities requires a powerful response. We must seize the moment and emerge from the pandemic with a new and better way of schooling—one that meets student and family needs and addresses systemic failures to provide equitable educational opportunities for all.

Proven solution. Community schools are a proven solution for coordinating services so that the right students have access to the right services at the right time. Effective community schools begin with understanding community assets and designing support specific to the needs of children and families. And, community schools are proving their mettle during COVID-19. By leveraging relationships with students, families, and community partners, they have quickly coordinated local resources in creative ways to meet unprecedented student and family needs. Serving as neighborhood hubs, community schools have addressed emergent challenges, including the digital divide, hunger, health, trauma, and homelessness.

The building blocks for scaling exist. There is a groundswell of support that stands ready to help scale a community schooling approach. A diverse national network composed of advocacy groups, such as the Coalition for Community Schools, teachers’ unions, parent networks, expanded learning providers, higher education institutions, and capacity-building intermediaries, supports policy development and provides technical assistance. A shared commitment to all children thriving and to strengthening communities brings all of these groups together. A research network, focused on marshaling evidence and setting standards, supports quality implementation across the country. There are numerous examples—both urban and rural—of successful district, regional, and state community school initiatives (New Mexico, Cincinnati, Oakland, and New York).

Recommendations for a concerted national effort to scale community schools

By creating a shared understanding of the community schools strategy among funders, policymakers, and practitioners and intentionally coordinating, aligning, and leveraging resources and policies around a common vision, we can build a concerted national effort to scale community schools. Community schools have an essential role in creating healthy rural, suburban, and urban communities where everyone fully belongs. We provide the below recommendations as a starting point to do just that:

Immediate executive actions

We support the recommendation made by Nemours Children’s Health System, Mental Health America, First Focus on Children, Education Redesign Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Forum for Youth Investment, and others to establish a White House Office of Children and Youth to organize cross-departmental and interagency efforts to ensure rapid recovery from COVID-19 and address long-standing impacts of structural inequality and systematic racism. In the first 90 days of the Biden-Harris administration, this Office would:

Establish a White House Commission on Next Generation Community Schools to spearhead the expansion of community schools during the first four years of the Biden-Harris administration by:

(1) studying the scale and scope of learning loss related to the pandemic;

(2) convening the nation’s governors at the White House to spur state-level policy and funding activity in support of community school expansion in their respective states;

(3) leading, together with the U.S. Conference of Mayors, a mayoral campaign to establish and spread a next generation of community schools across the country, starting with the communities most impacted by COVID-19;

(4) collaborating with state and local children’s cabinets to ensure successful adoption of the strategy;

(5) empowering youth leaders to help shape a national community schools agenda; and

(6) amplifying successful strategies at the level of the Local Education Agency (LEA) for community school implementation and braiding funding.

Reduce barriers associated with braiding and blending funding from multiple federal departments, agencies, and programs that support community schools by issuing an executive order to direct agencies to:

Identify and use common definitions, metrics (e.g., GPRA requirements), and priorities across discretionary grant programs issued across federal departments and agencies that relate to school health, school mental health, school safety, and other issues central to the community schools framework.

Issue guidance on combining funds across formula and discretionary grant programs that support healthy whole child outcomes in the context of community schools.

Leverage a common application form across multiple grant programs to reduce the burdens associated with preparing and submitting grant proposals.

Use guidance and regulations from the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to advance a next generation of community schools through:

Updating and issuing new nonregulatory guidance on the use of ESSA funds (particularly for Title I-A, Title I-D, Title IV-A, and Title IV-B) that includes a specific focus on the community schools strategy.

Establishing a community schools technical assistance center through the Department of Education focused on supporting local and state education agencies, as well as their governmental (e.g., Departments of Health) and nongovernmental (e.g., community nonprofits) partners to collect quality data and establish community schools partnerships.

COVID-19 Relief

Prioritize community schools as a critical COVID-19 recovery strategy in communities and an eligible use of federal COVID-19 relief dollars earmarked for schools in communities most impacted by the pandemic.

Provide start-up funding for state- and local-level children’s cabinets that facilitate the integration and coordination of cross-sector resources for whole-child supports.

Expand AmeriCorps to meet the social, emotional, and academic needs of students, particularly those in the schools most impacted by COVID-19.

Address food insecurity. Extend waivers allowing universal school meals and extend Pandemic-EBT SNAP benefits for school age children through at least September 2022.

Build incentives for community schools as part of infrastructure revitalization. Encourage the co-location of critical community services, including technical certification/job training programs and social service agencies (e.g., community health and mental health providers), at schools as part of funding to build a more modern and sustainable community infrastructure.

Long-term strategies

Create incentives for districts that develop the community school strategy as part of their Title I plans.

Extend the use of funds from the Student Success and Academic Enrichment grant program (Title IV Part-A) to support hiring staff critical to the functioning of community schools. Such staff include, but are not limited to, community school coordinators, social workers, guidance counselors, family engagement specialists, positive behavior and intervention supports specialists, and out-of-school time program directors.

Establish next generation community school national and regional technical assistance centers to build the professional capacity of community school leaders and to create national peer learning communities.

Reinvigorate and expand the Promise Neighborhood Grants Program, center it around the community school strategy, and focus funding on the 500 neighborhoods most impacted by COVID-19 as a way to activate and connect local community resources to invigorate building back better.

Make community schools a priority area for a rapid-cycle learning agenda and 10-year improvement science research and development effort, as well as a focus area for Institute of Educational Science (IES) and Education and Innovation (EIR) grants.

The undersigned members of the Task Force on Next Generation Community Schools include: Robert Balfanz, Director, Everyone Graduates Center, Johns Hopkins University Richard R. Buery Jr., President, Achievement First Hedy Chang, Executive Director, Attendance Works Leslie Cornfeld, President and CEO, National Education Equity Lab Abe Fernández, Vice President of Collective Impact and Director, National Center for Community Schools, Children’s Aid Kristen Harper (Task Force Vice Chair), Director of Policy and Outreach, Child Trends Reuben Jacobson, Senior Professorial Lecturer and Director of the Education Policy and Leadership Program, American University Sarah Jonas (Task Force Chair), Executive Director, Office of Community Schools, New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) John King Jr., President and CEO, The Education Trust Kristin Anderson Moore, Senior Scholar and Past President, Child Trends Jose Muñoz, Director, Coalition for Community Schools, Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) Jeannie Oakes, Presidential Professor Emeritus in Educational Equity, University of California, Los Angeles; Senior Fellow in Residence, Learning Policy Institute (LPI) Sarah Peterson, Director of Research and Development, Office of Community Schools, New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) Gema Quetzal, Next Generation Coalition Co-Chair, Coalition for Community Schools, Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) Jane Quinn, Director 2000-2018, National Center for Community Schools, Children’s Aid Ian Rosenblum, Executive Director, The Education Trust-New York Robert Runcie, Superintendent, Broward County Public Schools Rey Saldaña, President and CEO, Communities in Schools Scott Sargrad, Vice President of K-12 Education Policy, Center for American Progress (CAP) Kyle Serrette, Senior Policy Analyst, National Education Association (NEA) Tony Smith, Founder and CEO, Whyspeople Rebecca Winthrop (Task Force Vice Chair), Senior Fellow and Co-Director, Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution Dr. Brian T. Woods, Superintendent, Northside Independent School District Sheena Wright, President and CEO, United Way of New York City  

[khalilhumam]

Top Brookings content of 2020

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/top-brookings-content-of-2020/

Top Brookings content of 2020

By Paul Gadalla The year 2020 will be remembered as one of the most eventful years in memory. The world experienced a pandemic that caused businesses and borders to close, pushing medical systems to the brink, collapsing economies, and causing the deaths of over a million people. The Black Lives Matter movement and racial tensions came to the forefront in American cities large and small after the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others at the hands of police. And the year ended with a tumultuous U.S. presidential election, which saw Joe Biden defeat President Donald Trump despite the latter refusing to concede. At the end of this tumultuous year, Brookings Now takes a look back at the most popular items of 2020 authored by our scholars and published on the Brookings website. These do not include books published by the Brookings Institution Press; for highlights, see the Press’s 2020 holiday reading list.

10. What is the Trump administration’s track record on the environment?

Foreign Policy Fellow Samantha Gross, director of the Energy Security and Climate Initiative at Brookings, documented President Donald Trump’s track record on the environment. She counted 74 actions to weaken environmental project by the publication in August of her Voter Vitals paper for the Policy 2020 project, and noted that “President Trump is particularly focused on rolling back policy to address climate change, which is possible because Congress has been unwilling to enshrine such policy in law.” See also from Samantha Gross, “Why are fossil fuels so hard to quit?,” a Foreign Policy Essay.

9. Examining the Black-white wealth gap

The Hamilton Project’s Kriston McIntosh, Emily Moss, Ryan Nunn, and Jay Shambaugh examined the “staggering” racial disparities of wealth in the United States. The net worth of the average white family, they noted, is nearly ten times larger than that of the average Black family. “The Black-white wealth gap reflects a society that has not and does not afford equality of opportunity to all its citizens,” they wrote, arguing for, among other policy responses, increased taxation of income from wealth. See also the Race, Prosperity, and Inclusion Initiative.

8. More pain than gain: How the US-China trade war hurt America

Trade between China and the U.S. became a more contentious issue during the Trump administration when Washington slapped tariffs on a number of Chinese imports, and trade negotiations between the two countries devolved into a trade war. Foreign Policy Fellow Ryan Hass and expert Abraham Denmark detailed how the trade war with China hurt America, writing that “the ultimate results of the phase one trade deal between China and the United States—and the trade war that preceded it—have significantly hurt the American economy without solving the underlying economic concerns that the trade war was meant to resolve.” Brookings recently published the final papers in its multi-year Global China Initiative.

7. Foresight Africa: Top priorities for the continent 2020-2030

In Foresight Africa 2020, experts from the Africa Growth Initiative and also from outside Brookings discussed the priorities of the African continent over the next decade. Experts outlined six overarching themes in the report: achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, deepening good governance, leveraging demographic trends for economic transformation, combating climate change, capturing the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and bolstering Africa’s role in the global economy.

6. Biden-voting counties equal 70% of America’s economy. What does this mean for the nation’s political-economic divide?

After the 2020 elections, Metropolitan Policy Program researchers Mark Muro, Eli Byerly Duke, Yang You, and Robert Maxim conducted a detailed look at how counties across the country voted, discovering that the economic rift of 28% between Trump and Clinton counties had widened since 2016. For the current election year, they found that: “Biden’s winning base in 509 counties encompasses fully 71% of America’s economic activity, while Trump’s losing base of 2,547 counties represents just 29% of the economy.”

5. The places a COVID-19 recession [WOULD] likely hit hardest

The COVID-19 pandemic had (and continues to have) a devastating impact on workers and the economy, especially in the spring when many businesses were first forced to close or scale back their activities. Metropolitan Policy Program researchers Mark Muro, Robert Maxim, and Jacob Whiton mapped which areas in the U.S. would be the hardest hit economically due to the virus. “The most affected places,” they wrote, “are a who’s who of energy towns and major resort, leisure, and amusement destinations across the nation.” Visit the Metropolitan Policy Program for the most up-to-date information about the pandemic’s impact on the economy and workers.

4. [COULD] President Trump win an Electoral College majority in 2020?

This year’s U.S. presidential election was one of the most contentious in recent history, with President Trump refusing to concede more than a month after Election Day, and after the Electoral College gave 306 votes to Joe Biden. But prior to November 3, there was much speculation about whether President Trump could be reelected again without a majority of the popular vote; Governance Studies Senior Fellow William Galston correctly predicted he could not: “To win reelection, President Trump will have to reduce Joe Biden’s national vote advantage, which now stands at more than 10 percentage points, by about 8 points during the final two weeks of the campaign, an accomplishment for which there’s no clear precedent in American history.”

3. Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, unemployment was at an all-time low in the U.S. But Martha Ross and Nicole Bateman explained that that wasn’t the whole picture. Despite more people having jobs, many were (and are) underpaid. “In a recent analysis, we found that 53 million workers ages 18 to 64—or 44% of all workers—earn barely enough to live on,” according to Ross and Bateman. “Millions of hardworking American adults struggle to eke out a living and support their families on very low wages.” Read also their later piece, “We can’t recover from a coronavirus recession without helping young workers.” 

2. How does vote-by-mail work and does it increase election fraud?

Darrell West, vice president and director of Brookings’s Governance Studies program,  detailed in a Voter Vitals paper a hot-topic issue of 2020: voting by mail. Although voting by mail has existed for decades in various places, it became essential during a pandemic, and many states expanded their vote-by-mail capabilities leading up to the election. Despite some fears about fraud and security, West argued that “there is no evidence that mail balloting increases electoral fraud as there are several anti-fraud protections built into the process designed to make it difficult to impersonate voters or steal ballots.” West also authored the election-relevant paper, “It’s time to abolish the Electoral College.”

1. What does ‘defund the police’ mean and does it have merit?

In the most read piece of Brookings content this year, David M. Rubenstein Fellow Rashawn Ray unpacked what “defund the police means” in the wake of nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd and other Black Americans at the hands of police. As Ray noted: “Different from abolishing and starting anew, defunding police highlights fiscal responsibility, advocates for a market-driven approach to taxpayer money, and has some potential benefits that will reduce police violence and crime.” Also, watch Ray’s video on how to improve police accountability.

[khalilhumam]

UN chief commends ‘swift action’ by Nigerian authorities as more than 300 boys are reunited with their families

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/un-chief-commends-swift-action-by-nigerian-authorities-as-more-than-300-boys-are-reunited-with-their-families/

UN chief commends ‘swift action’ by Nigerian authorities as more than 300 boys are reunited with their families

The UN chief on Friday welcomed the release of more than 300 schoolboys forcibly taken from their school in northwest Nigeria a week ago, although others reportedly remain missing.  

[khalilhumam]

COVID-19: Avoid ‘nationalistic footrace’ in choosing vaccines

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/covid-19-avoid-nationalistic-footrace-in-choosing-vaccines/

COVID-19: Avoid ‘nationalistic footrace’ in choosing vaccines

As governments move to secure COVID-19 vaccines for their populations, choosing these treatments should not be viewed as “some kind of nationalistic footrace”, with some countries winning and others losing, a senior official with the World Health Organization (WHO) told journalists on Friday. 

[khalilhumam]

What Deb Haaland’s historic nomination as interior secretary means for Indigenous peoples

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/what-deb-haalands-historic-nomination-as-interior-secretary-means-for-indigenous-peoples/

What Deb Haaland’s historic nomination as interior secretary means for Indigenous peoples

By Robert Maxim, Randall Akee In an historic election year that saw the first African American and first Asian American woman elected vice president of the United States, the first woman nominated for treasury secretary, and the first openly gay man nominated to a cabinet position, yet another first was announced this Thursday: Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) as the nominee for secretary of the interior. If confirmed, she will become the first Native American to hold a cabinet position, and will be the second-highest-ranking enrolled Native American ever to serve in the federal government. While the secretary of the interior may not be as high-profile as other cabinet offices, the position is enormously consequential for many people’s lives. Not the least among these are the Indigenous peoples of the United States, including the nation’s 574 federally recognized American Indian and Alaskan Native communities. The Department of the Interior has oversight of federal lands and waterways as well as the plants, animals, and natural resources located there. The department also manages the U.S. government’s relationship with Native American nations via the Bureau of Indian Affairs. That bureau has a notorious history: stripping ownership of tribal reservation lands under the Dawes Act, instituting Indian boarding schools, and carrying out the Indian Termination Era. In more recent years, the bureau has generally worked toward expanding the self-governance and economic activities of tribal governments through the administration of policies such as the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, which allows tribes to administer their own programs and services on reservation or village lands. Rep. Haaland’s nomination marks a turning point in valuing the experiences, knowledge, and leadership of Native American nations, which would have been unimaginable in previous presidential administrations. In particular, Rep. Haaland possesses a unique capability and perspective for this position: She’s from a state with a range of Native American reservations, from the Navajo Nation to the Pueblo communities (she is a citizen of the Laguna Pueblo); she was the chairwoman of her tribal economic development corporation; and she supported efforts at Standing Rock to preserve tribal sovereignty and protect the natural resources threatened by the proposed oil pipeline in 2016. All of this will be important to change the direction of a department that has often found its stewardship of public lands and waters challenged by politically empowered interest groups, and that will likely encounter sharp resistance to repatriating tribal lands—a priority for Native Americans. While Native American issues have never fallen cleanly along partisan lines, the Trump administration was perhaps the most hostile presidency to Native Americans in the past half-century. Over the last four years, the administration has taken a variety of actions harmful to Native American communities, such as scaling back public lands like Bears Ears National Monument, destroying sacred sites for border wall construction, opening federally protected lands to drilling and mining, and creating unnecessary controversies over COVID-19 relief to tribes. And in a moment when Native American nations are trying to reclaim their homelands, the Trump Interior Department threatened to take the U.S. back to the Termination Era by disestablishing the reservation of the Mashpee Wampanoag—the first reduction of Native American reservation lands in decades. In light of this, the nomination of an interior secretary who not only understands but has firsthand experience with the injustices Native American communities face will make a world of difference. It is also possible to envision the insights and expertise Rep. Haaland may lend to other cabinet secretaries administering crucial programs for Native American nations, such the departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs. But she will face challenges. Congress continues to underfund its trust and treaty obligations to Native Americans so severely that the U.S. government itself has described it as a “civil rights crisis in our nation.” Lawmakers will also have a significant say in how much leeway Rep. Haaland has to return lands to tribes and restrict fossil fuel extraction. Meanwhile, Native American communities continue to grapple with a host of emergencies, such as the disproportionately deadly impacts of COVID-19 and the ongoing epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women. So, while having an Indigenous interior secretary is a necessary condition for improving the well-being of Native Americans, it’s by no means sufficient on its own. The day-to-day challenges many Native Americans face will be impossible to overcome through just a single nomination. Nonetheless, this is a historic moment and an opportunity to move the Interior Department from a position of active harm toward Native American nations to one of mutual respect, partnership, and understanding.

Robert Maxim is a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and a research associate with the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program.  Randall Akee (Native Hawaiians) is a nonresident fellow with the Economic Studies program at Brookings and an associate professor in public policy and American Indian Studies at UCLA.

[khalilhumam]

Mozambique: Fighting Displaces Over 500,000 in Northern Mozambique, Reports UN Refugee Agency

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/mozambique-fighting-displaces-over-500000-in-northern-mozambique-reports-un-refugee-agency/

Mozambique: Fighting Displaces Over 500,000 in Northern Mozambique, Reports UN Refugee Agency

[UN News] Attacks by armed groups and worsening insecurity in Mozambique's Cabo Delgado, Nampula, Zambezia and Niassa provinces have displaced more than 530,000 people, many of whom have been forced to move multiple times, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday.

[khalilhumam]

Tanzania: Remembering Ujamaa, the Good, the Bad and the Buried

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/tanzania-remembering-ujamaa-the-good-the-bad-and-the-buried/

Tanzania: Remembering Ujamaa, the Good, the Bad and the Buried

[African Arguments] Julius Nyerere and his African socialist policies are regarded with great pride in Tanzania, but not by all who experienced them first-hand.

[khalilhumam]

How political uncertainty hurts the US economy: Lessons from Italy

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/how-political-uncertainty-hurts-the-us-economy-lessons-from-italy/

How political uncertainty hurts the US economy: Lessons from Italy

By Carlo Bastasin Overseas observers of American politics are certainly disconcerted by the degree of domestic political animosity in the U.S., and by the self-inflicted delegitimization of its democratic institutions in the last two decades. Those who observe similar events from Italy feel a particular shiver run down their spine. Memories of what happened in the early 1990s, when Italy’s state and institutions suffered a severe loss of credibility and the political fight turned fierce and acrimonious, still haunt. Since then, the Italian economy has never recovered, in part because investors need a stable political framework to take risks, particularly around intangible investments. At that time, Italy’s regional divide became so contentious as to cast doubt over the very unity of the state. The public debt grew at record levels for peace time. Financial instability was so severe that Italy’s exchange rate agreements with European partners were suspended. However, it was the discredit suffered by Italy’s political class that caused the economy to stop growing. The parties’ reciprocal accusations of corruption and hidden interests tore apart the citizens’ sense of community and created a climate of profound mistrust. In the mid-1990s, Italy’s GDP per capita was higher than the United Kingdom, and aligned with Germany’s and France’s. Since then, the income of Italians has dropped by 30% compared to European counterparts. For economists, the “Italian disease” is still kind of a mystery. In fact, it is especially elusive because the causes of Italy’s economic decline were rooted in political events. In some ways, those events are perhaps similar to what we see in the U.S. today: Deep fractures in government degrade its efficacy, the legitimacy of the highest public offices has been denigrated, and there are attempts to manipulate judicial powers. All this has taken place amid a frenetic electoral cycle in a hyper-partisan media landscape. On top of this, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently estimated that U.S. government debt may amount to 160% of the GDP by 2030, reaching exactly the same level as Italy today. Rising public debts, regardless of why they exist, are a strong amplifier of political uncertainty, and transmit instability to the rest of the economy. In Italy’s experience, this has happened mostly through the effects of political shocks on the prices of government bonds, which are the backbone (the “safe asset”) of the financial system. This produces what is called a “doom-loop” between sovereign and banks debts. In the U.S., the Federal Reserve can mitigate those effects, but this may happen at the cost of eroding the central bank’s credibility in pursuing its monetary objectives. In the long term, risk premiums on the government bonds might become permanently higher and affect economic growth. The particular uncertainty originating from the state’s institutional framework especially affects “intangible” investments, such as those in research, intellectual property, software, and changes and improvements in labor and capital organization. These investments are riskier than tangible ones because they require high capital engagements and high start-up costs in the face of uncertain outcomes and returns that are postponed over time. Moreover, labor and capital reorganization requires associated political reforms. Finally, if a country’s stability is questioned, banks and financial investors are more wary of engaging and funding intangible investments, from which they will not be able to recover any material collateral in case of failure. Empirical experience and statistical data confirm that for intangible investments to flourish, a first requirement is stability in political and institutional frameworks. Unfortunately, it is precisely those investments in new ideas, new ventures, new research, or still unknown advanced technologies that will be vital for every country’s development and well-being in the decades to come. When Italy experienced its phase of exceptional political turbulence and the loss of credibility in its institutions, the economy suffered a dramatic setback. Public and private investments collapsed, and the intangible ones fell by more than 20% between 1992 and 1993. The consequences are still felt today because Italian productivity has never recovered. Entrepreneurs were afraid of immobilizing their capital in an unstable political context. Instead, they chose to cut costs, beginning with the number of employees, and piled pressure on the government to introduce any form of flexibility that allowed firms to expatriate at the first signs of instability. Thirty years later, none of the major Italian private corporations of the time — Fiat (now FCA), Luxottica, Fininvest, or Pirelli, among others — has its legal seat in Italy. Of course, the early 1990s were a spectacularly wrong time for skirting intangible investments. It was the time in which information technologies emerged as the most transformative power in the production of traditional goods and services, opening the way to innovative solutions, higher productivity, and better-paying jobs. In many ways, the present moment is an exceptional one too, albeit with differences from the 1990s. Whatever one thinks of the claim that we entered an age of secular stagnation or of excess of savings over investments, there is no doubt that the U.S. needs significant infrastructure investment to bring the quality of the capital stock in line with other advanced or “advancing” economies. The most striking hole is where public and private investments should leverage each other: Just think of the American delays in 5G networks and other important infrastructures, where the material component is indistinguishable from the immaterial one, from air and ground transportation to medical services. The state’s role in incentivizing lower-emission means of power generation or greener transportation, either private or public, is far behind the curve. There is ample space for a catch-up, but making the government work proficiently with the private requires political stability. Maintaining people’s trust is of paramount importance. The political climate in the U.S. in recent years has been disappointing for anyone who understands the relevance (economic and otherwise) of public consensus around democratic rules and values. Governments must demonstrate to citizens that they (the people) ultimately benefit from the democratic system. In order to do that, improving social policies, such as by upgrading the federal and state safety nets, is key, as well as increasing poor families’ access to quality education. The Italian experience shows that the loss of political credibility and the weakening of the economy are self-sustaining. Once a vicious circle is generated, it is extremely difficult and enormously painful to reverse it.

[khalilhumam]

Southern Africa: Terrorism in Mozambique Needs African Solutions

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/southern-africa-terrorism-in-mozambique-needs-african-solutions/

Southern Africa: Terrorism in Mozambique Needs African Solutions

[ISS] If Mozambique at last accepts regional support, SADC must heed the hard lessons learned elsewhere on the continent.

[khalilhumam]

South Sudan: Conflict, Floods and Covid-19 Push Nation Into Extreme Hunger

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/south-sudan-conflict-floods-and-covid-19-push-nation-into-extreme-hunger/

South Sudan: Conflict, Floods and Covid-19 Push Nation Into Extreme Hunger

[UN News] Driven by insecurity, the effects of COVID-19, an on-going economic crisis, and the impact of flooding on livelihoods, three UN agencies called on Friday for immediate humanitarian access to eastern South Sudan's Pibor county, where people are facing catastrophic levels of hunger.

[khalilhumam]

Two billion COVID vaccine doses secured, WHO says end of pandemic is in sight

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/two-billion-covid-vaccine-doses-secured-who-says-end-of-pandemic-is-in-sight/

Two billion COVID vaccine doses secured, WHO says end of pandemic is in sight

The end of the pandemic is in sight but we must not let our guard down, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday, as he welcomed the news that the global vaccine partnership COVAX has lined up almost two billion doses of existing and candidate vaccines for use worldwide.

[khalilhumam]

Conflict, floods and COVID-19 push South Sudanese into extreme hunger 

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/conflict-floods-and-covid-19-push-south-sudanese-into-extreme-hunger/

Conflict, floods and COVID-19 push South Sudanese into extreme hunger 

Driven by insecurity, the effects of COVID-19, an on-going economic crisis, and the impact of flooding on livelihoods, three UN agencies called on Friday for immediate humanitarian access to eastern South Sudan’s Pibor county, where people are facing catastrophic levels of hunger. 

[khalilhumam]

International Migrants Day and COVID-19

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/international-migrants-day-and-covid-19/

International Migrants Day and COVID-19

By Omer Karasapan The U.N. General Assembly recognized December 18 as International Migrants Day in 2000, 10 years after the 1990 adoption of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant workers and Members of their Families. This year the day comes in the midst of a raging pandemic further challenging the world’s estimated 272 million migrants—a term that applies to all those who, legally or otherwise, have left their country for another. This number reflects a vast increase; the U.N. says a 2003 estimate foresaw only 230 million migrants by 2050. The U.N. expects these numbers to grow due to population growth, increasing connectivity, trade, rising inequality, demographic imbalances, climate change, and conflict. The United States has the largest number of migrants at 50.7 million—around 15 percent of the population. Canada has 8 million, 21 percent of its population. Jordan, Lebanon, and the Gulf Cooperation Council states host 35 million international migrants, 23 million classified as migrant workers. They constitute a high proportion and often the majority of the population in Saudi Arabia (30 percent), Oman (45 percent), Bahrain (50.1 percent), Kuwait (70 percent), and over 80 percent in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. In Belgium, migrants constitute 17 percent of the population; the corresponding numbers are 16 percent in Germany and 14 percent in the U.K. In terms of specific groups and going beyond first generation migrants, the European Union had 26 million Muslims in 2016, comprising 9 percent of France’s population, 8.1 percent in Sweden, 6.9 percent in Austria, and 6.1 percent in Germany.

Migrants are and will remain a very visible and indispensable part of life in many countries

These large numbers have had consequences. Especially in the West but also in Lebanon, Turkey, and elsewhere, politicians are using anti-immigrant rhetoric as political fodder. The U.N. says migration has been weaponized and used as a political tool to undermine democracy and inclusive civic engagement while downplaying migrants’ contributions. President Trump has instituted a ban on travel from Muslim-majority countries, reduced refugee resettlements from 96,000 in 2016 to 18,000 in 2019, and instituted harsh measures against asylum seekers. Anti-immigrant Brexiteers and populists from almost all EU countries need no introduction. The most telling of the mood in Europe was when the “migration, home affairs, and citizenship” portfolio at the European Commission was renamed as the office for “promoting our European way of life.” Yet, migrants are and will remain a very visible and indispensable part of life in many countries. Their numbers, the critical work they perform, and the risks they face speak for themselves. Two-thirds of migrants are labor migrants, accounting for 20.6 percent of all workers in North America and 18 percent in Western, Eastern, and Southern Europe. These workers are often in “essential critical infrastructure”, i.e., health, infrastructure, manufacturing, service, food, and safety. Nearly 70 percent of workers in these sectors in the U.S. are migrants. They also play a critical role in these sectors in large hosting regions like the Persian Gulf and Western Europe. The U.N. says, the U.S., France, Spain, U.K., Italy, Germany, Chile, and Belgium depend on the foreign born for health care. In the U.K. 33 percent of doctors and 22 percent of nurses are foreign born.

Migrant populations are most vulnerable to economic shocks like lockdowns and COVID-19 infections given their economic precarity and lack of adequate shelter and access to appropriate protective gear and health care.

Migrant populations are also most vulnerable to economic shocks like lockdowns and COVID-19 infections given their economic precarity and lack of adequate shelter and access to appropriate protective gear and health care. In Saudi Arabia, migrants comprised 75 percent of all new cases of the pandemic in May 2020. In June 2020, 95 percent of Singapore’s confirmed cases were migrants, mostly in dormitories. In New York, where 37 percent of the population is foreign born, migrants were overrepresented in 9 of 10 areas most affected by COVID-19. However, their contributions go beyond performing the essential services avoided by locals. Migrant firms were the first to announce COVID-19 vaccinations. Underlining that immigrants have higher entrepreneurship and contribute disproportionally to innovation, Germany’s BioNTech, with employees from 60 countries was established by Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, children of Turkish migrants. Moderna has Lebanese-Armenian Noubar Afeyan as a co-founder. Moroccan born Moncef Slaoui heads America’s Operation Warp Speed to develop vaccines. Women refugees are slightly less than half of all migrants, but their numbers are increasing faster while facing additional discrimination and mistreatment. Women are also most often the ones caring for the stricken whether at home or work with higher infection risks. The U.N. says their remittances skew more toward educational, health, and livelihood needs. Some 8.5 million women migrant domestic workers on insecure contracts face income loss and greater risks of abuse and exploitation, even as travel bans and border controls make returns impossible. For example, many of Lebanon’s 250,000 migrant domestic workers were abandoned by employers as the country’s economic crisis plus the pandemic and the port blast took their toll. Among the most vulnerable are refugees, i.e., those displaced from their countries, mostly by conflict but also by economic crises, natural disasters, and climate change. Developing countries host 84 percent of all refugees. Over 50 percent of all refugees are from Syria (6.6 million), Venezuela (3.6 million), Afghanistan (2.7 million), and South Sudan (2.2 million). The top three hosts were Turkey (3.6 million), Colombia (1.8 million), and Pakistan (1.4 million). As a share of population, Lebanon leads with 156 refugees per 1,000; Jordan follows with 72 per 1,000. The pandemic has much worsened an already problematic health care situation. The economic impact of migration is enormous and globally, 800 million people—1 in 9—receive remittances. In 2019 remittances to low- and middle-income countries ($548 billion) outpaced foreign direct investment ($532 billion) and official aid ($166 billion). The World Bank projects a drop to $508 billion in 2020 and $470 billion in 2021. The top three remittance senders in 2018 were the U.S. ($68 billion), the UAE ($44.4 billion), and Saudi Arabia ($36.1 billion). The top three destinations were India ($78.6 billion), China ($67.4 billion), and Mexico ($35.7 billion). Foreign direct investment ($532 billion in 2019) is projected to decline by 32 percent in 2020. Migrants send home, on average, 15 percent of what they earn, the rest is spent in-country.

Let us use International Migrants Day in 2020 to reaffirm the value of migrants and protect them so that they are part of “building back better.”

While migration may be temporarily slowed by the pandemic and populist politicians, it is not going to go away and will rebound. However, we do need to and are moving toward better managing it. On December 18, 2018 the U.N. General Assembly endorsed the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, a nonbinding agreement adopted by 164 member states, and described by the U.N. as a “roadmap to prevent suffering and chaos.” The previous day, the U.N. General Assembly had affirmed the Global Compact on Refugees, a framework for more equitable responsibility-sharing on the refugee challenge. Both are comprehensive frameworks for which implementation will take time and progress will be slow, but with the climate change challenge at humanity’s doorstep, progress cannot be delayed for long. Let us use International Migrants Day in 2020 to reaffirm the value of migrants and protect them so that they are part of “building back better.”

[khalilhumam]

The Best of 2020: What We Read While the World Burned Around Us (Research Edition)

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/the-best-of-2020-what-we-read-while-the-world-burned-around-us-research-edition/

The Best of 2020: What We Read While the World Burned Around Us (Research Edition)

Even Dr. Pangloss would struggle to put a positive spin on 2020, a historic dumpster fire of a year in which a global pandemic, the deaths of a whole string of superheroes (Chadwick Boseman, Diana Rigg, Diego Maradona, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg start the list), and [*deep breath*] Beirut ammonium nitrate explosions, the costliest cyclone ever (Amphan), the Tehran plane crash, and California and Australia burning down. Kobe’s gone too. And Gerard Houillier. It’s been tough, and that’s without the ever-constant “I think you’re on mute” Zoom meetings.  But Candide’s alternative to Pangloss’s mindless optimism (after an even worse turn of events, if you can imagine that) serves as an inspiration: we must cultivate our garden. In that spirit, we’ve picked our favourite papers and articles about development of the year, picking pieces that help us understand the problems we’re working on better and how best to fix them.

Not the same storm, nor the same boats.

It’s inevitable that our first picks relate to COVID-19. Sifting through the avalanche of research in response to the coronavirus pandemic drove better minds than ours to distraction. Avinash Dixit estimated that the famous R rate for the pace of reproduction of COVID-19 research was as high as 34, though we had one advantage in fighting this pandemic of overconfident prognostication: there were no asymptomatic carriers of armchair epidemiology. Looking back at this wave of content, a few pieces stand out. Our colleague Justin Sandefur and his co-authors—in CGD’s most-read paper of the year—took on the task of estimating the infection-fatality rate from Covid across countries and came to the conclusion that sub-Saharan Africa faced substantially lower death rates from the disease—and the data (tentatively) suggest it may have been even lower than anyone predicted. Our current  lived experience of coronavirus ranges from total normality in Taiwan to everyday dysfunction in the US and tears over tiers in the UK, but in February many thought every country in the world would and should lock down completely to suppress the virus. Another of our favourite pieces of the year - Mushfiq Mobarak and Zachary Barnett-Howell writing in Foreign Policy made the case that the policy response in poor countries needed to be completely different to that in rich countries - the costs of lockdown were much greater, and the benefits fewer. Policy making during COVID-19 was incredibly hard—but pieces like this helped, as did this early note from Stefan Dercon suggesting where effort could be directed without regret, despite the uncertainty governments faced.

The sudden death of the Doing Business Index

We don’t gloat at CGD (that’s one of our few institutional positions). Yet news that the Doing Business Index was being suspended after allegations of data manipulation presumably raised a few eyebrows in this parish. The Index has long been a punching bag for researchers keen to understand how laws, implementation, and economic activity interact—partly because its construction varies over time, and partly because it doesn’t seem to shed much light on how business is actually done. Though few tears were shed outside the Bank over its demise, the Index will likely be resurrected. Whether it will ever recover credibility is much less likely, especially after what appears to an incredibly damning internal review, apparently confirming that data were manipulated under management pressures—requiring critically urgent reform. Part of the process of getting better is abandoning what doesn’t work. Expect this one to keep running.

Rebranding the bureaucrat

Dan Honig has been waging a battle on twitter to rebrand the bureaucrat, suggesting that . bureaucratic culture can drive better performance, and that it can be ‘created’ with relatively simple interventions. Two great new papers showcase this: in Ghana, Azulai et. al. implement a large scale training intervention aimed at cultural change in the civil service and find it improved division-level performance where the trainees were placed. And Muhammad Yasir Khan’s study in Pakistan shows that emphasising the mission-driven aspect of health work improves not only performance of health workers (and does so on more dimensions of their work than a simple incentive), it also improves downstream health outcomes in the community. These are some of the most optimistic and hopeful findings of the year—all praise the bureaucrats. If  large-scale change is going to happen, it will generally not be down to the efforts of a small but brilliant NGO, but because the full machinery of government bureaucracy is capable of action and can improve its performance.

A history of economics in 20 and ½ pages (and the future in 3)

One of the best long reads of the year was the three-way discussion between Amartya Sen, Angus Deaton and Tim Besley in the Annual Review of Economics, dominated by Amartya’s stories of his life as an economist and the people he interacted with. His story is almost a history of economic thought—arguing with Joan Robinson, talking about the environment with Arthur Pigou, being encouraged to folly by Nicholas Kaldor and reminding us of near-forgotten names like Piero Sraffa and Maurice Dobbs. This choice sticks out a little here because it doesn’t highlight a single finding or approach, but rather reminds us of much of the good the discipline has already produced—something economists, a species with a shorter memory than most, tend to forget. In a similar vein was this superb profile by John McDermott of Leonard Wantchekon: not about a specific paper or finding, but something that should give us hope about the capacity of economics to make the world better. Leonard has had an extraordinary life—from political prisoner to political economist - and his work to create an African School of Economics can only be a good thing for the generation of home-grown solutions and ideas, and for asking the right questions.

The world is still divided, but perhaps we’re redeemable

Back in May the world was rocked by the brutal killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by police in Minnesota. A wave of protests over the way police treat Black people spread from Minneapolis to Manchester to Monrovia, highlighting racism and inequality in society. Floyd’s death was one of many hundreds of police-involved killings that happen each year in the United States alone, and this paper by Desmond Ang shows how proximity to police violence has devastating and long-term effects for teenagers. He found persistent decreases in GPA, increased incidence of emotional disturbance and lower rates of high school completion and college enrollment, with the effects driven entirely by black and Hispanic students in response to police killings of other minorities. Ang notes that police killings are hyper-local and nearly 80 percent went unmentioned in local newspapers. But it’s not just the media that’s uninterested in violence against Black people. The story of economist Lisa Cook’s struggle to publish her paper on how violence against African-Americans depressed entrepreneurship among that community reveals deep troubles within the economics profession that we have barely started to address. But, perhaps we should not give up on humans yet. We also read some papers this year that provide more encouraging signs about people’s ability to become more tolerant. Salma Mousa, following her superb paper in 2019 on the effect of Mo Salah on Islamophobia in Liverpool, assigned Iraqi Christians to play football either on teams with other Iraqi Christians, or on mixed teams with Muslim players. Their behaviour changed, but only in the context of the football league - players on mixed teams were more likely to nominate Muslim peers for awards, for example. These behavioural changes didn’t extend to other settings, however. But in every cricket fan’s favourite paper, Matt Lowe finds that contact can reduce prejudice beyond the sports field.  He assigned men from various castes in Uttar Pradesh, India, to cricket teams and measured whether contact reduced caste divisions. It did - cross caste friendships increased by 45 percent, driven almost entirely by collaborative contact (same team) rather than adversarial (opposing team) contact. In a world where divisions sometimes seem as deep as ever, these papers offer a ray of hope. Perhaps more effort to integrate schools, workplaces, and communities could reduce discrimination in society. And, just like the rollout of vaccinations ends 2020 on a hopeful note, we will stop there. Thanks to Aisha Ali, Lee Crawfurd, and Dan Honig for contributions. 

[khalilhumam]

Charts of the Week: Biden’s cabinet diversity; COVID-19 in Trump-won counties; health inequities

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/charts-of-the-week-bidens-cabinet-diversity-covid-19-in-trump-won-counties-health-inequities/

Charts of the Week: Biden’s cabinet diversity; COVID-19 in Trump-won counties; health inequities

By Olivia Tran, Fred Dews In this final edition in 2020 of Charts of the Week: proposals for diversity members in Biden’s cabinet; COVID-19 cases emerging fastest in Trump-won counties; and racial inequities in health and health care.

HOW THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION CAN INCREASE RACIAL DIVERSITY IN HIS CABINET

Figure 1 Nicol Turner Lee and Kathryn Dunn Tenpas document the racial and gender composition of previous presidential administrations and offer suggestions for President-elect Joe Biden to be more inclusive in his own. During the first 100 days under the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations, about 72 percent of all appointees were white individuals, as indicated by the chart. Lee and Tenpas provide several approaches to bring more Black officials into the Biden cabinet, including establishing an inaugural Office of Diversity and Inclusion to develop criteria for diverse hiring, and retention and adopting the use of the “Rooney Rule” to require interviews with candidates of color. “In a politically and racially fractured nation, moving toward increased representation of all leaders by race, gender, sexual orientation, and ideology does not occur by accident,” they explain. “More importantly, diversity should not just focus on representation. Rather, investments in diverse talent not only help make America stronger and more resilient, but it gets us closer to our constitutional mandates, resulting in a more perfect and inclusive union.”

TRUMP-WON COUNTIES OUTPACE BIDEN-WON COUNTIES IN COVID-19 CASES

William Frey analyzes demographic trends in the dramatic rise in COVID-19 cases across the country in recent months. At the start of the pandemic, COVID-19 was largely painted as a “blue state” phenomenon due to a concentrated number of cases in urban areas. However, over the summer, COVID-19 rates increased faster in Republican-leaning states and counties. The chart shows Trump-won counties began experiencing more cases compared to Biden-won counties in August, and the gap has grown bigger ever since. “[The] early perception that COVID-19 was only impacting places “somewhere else”—and that adopting measures such as wearing masks, observing social distancing, and eschewing large gatherings need not be followed—is no longer credible,” Frey warns. “The pandemic is impacting states and counties of nearly all types: urban, suburban, and rural, as well as areas with sharply different demographic attributes.”

RECOMMENDATIONS TO PROMOTE HEALTH EQUITY

In a brief as part of the Blueprints for American Renewal & Prosperity, Richard Reeves examines the exacerbating impact COVID-19 has had on communities vulnerable to pre-existing conditions and co-morbidities—deepening the racial divide in health and health care. The chart illustrates the significant inequities by race and gender, with overall obesity rates highest among Black women (57%), followed by Hispanic women (49%). The risk of being severely obese is also highest among Black women (16%), followed by Hispanic women (10%). Reeves adds that Black and Hispanic women are also much more likely to report that they suffer from food insecurity. “The rise in diet-driven chronic disease calls for of the transformation of our entire broken food system—from agricultural subsidies (especially for high-fructose corn syrup), official dietary guidelines, advertising, school lunches, and budget choices,” Reeves concludes. “Here I offer one key policy proposal—a tax on sugary drinks that offers the prospect of some real, immediate impact.”

[khalilhumam]

Thailand: UN rights office deeply troubled by treason charges for protestors

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/thailand-un-rights-office-deeply-troubled-by-treason-charges-for-protestors/

Thailand: UN rights office deeply troubled by treason charges for protestors

Thailand’s decision to charge protestors with treason is deeply troubling, the UN Human Rights Office, OHCHR, said on Friday following the arrest of at least 35 activists, including a teenager, in recent weeks. 

[khalilhumam]

Housing inequality gets worse as the COVID-19 pandemic is prolonged

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/housing-inequality-gets-worse-as-the-covid-19-pandemic-is-prolonged/

Housing inequality gets worse as the COVID-19 pandemic is prolonged

By Yung Chun, Michal Grinstein-Weiss In June, we reported that Black and Hispanic Americans faced higher rates of housing hardship than white Americans, and we emphasized the importance of identifying a long-term rather than a “Band-Aid” solution. Now, almost six months later, with COVID-19 cases skyrocketing, no significant efforts have been taken to mitigate the situation. Additionally, a change in administration will bring more delays, making the risk of a major housing crisis even more real. To make matters even worse, data from our recent survey indicates that the impact of COVID-19 on homeowners not only still exists, but it has significantly worsened, especially among Black and Hispanic households and young adults. We explored how housing hardships changed over time based on nationally representative survey samples from two waves of the Socioeconomic Impacts of COVID-19 Survey, administered by the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis. The survey was administered in late April and early May (Wave 1) and late August (Wave 2) to over 5,000 nationally representative samples each time. To understand housing hardships over time, we focused on the following questions:

Eviction/foreclosure: In the last three months, were you or anyone in your household forced to move by a landlord or bank when you did not want to?

Rent and mortgage delinquency: In the last three months, did you or someone in your household not pay the full amount of the rent or mortgage because you could not afford it?

Utility payment: In the last three months, did you or someone in your household skip paying a bill or paid a bill late due to not having enough money?

Data from our recent survey indicates that the impact of COVID-19 on homeowners not only still exists, but it has significantly worsened, especially among Black and Hispanic households and young adults.

Housing hardships increasing significantly among Hispanic and Black households

Strikingly, the eviction/foreclosure rates for all respondents doubled in August, mainly driven by Black and Hispanic households reporting higher evictions/foreclosures than white households (Figure 1). For example, the eviction/foreclosure rate of Black and Hispanic respondents increased by 7 percent as compared to only 2 percent among white respondents. Additionally, Black respondents were almost twice as likely to be forced to move than non-Hispanic white respondents in Wave 2, despite being least likely to be forced to move during Wave 1. While the jump in eviction risk among Black households is certainly alarming, Hispanic respondents maintain the highest vulnerability to eviction among the three groups both in Wave 1 and Wave 2. The trends of rent/mortgage delinquency (Figure 2) and other delayed bill payments (Figure 3) were similar to the eviction and/or foreclosure experience. The disproportionate housing-hardships across racial/ethnic groups widened as the pandemic was prolonged and will continue to widen if no action is taken.

Young adults more likely to face eviction/foreclosure and housing hardship than older adults

In addition to severe disparities in housing hardships based on race and ethnicity, we found a significant increase in hardship over time among young adults. In both survey waves, young adults (18-39 years old) were the most vulnerable to housing-related hardships, followed by middle-aged adults (40-54 years old), then older adults (55+ years old), and Wave 2 further widens the gap. While a very small number of older adults reported housing-related hardship experiences during either wave of our survey, both middle-aged- and young adults faced more housing instability as the pandemic persisted. In particular, nearly twice as many young adults reported both eviction/foreclosure and mortgage/rent delinquency (or “payment” delay) in August as compared to May. This is compounding the financial situation of young adults who have had a shorter amount of time to accumulate protective financial assets, making it harder to weather the shock of the pandemic.

Policies must support long-term solutions that address racial and generational disparities

This situation could potentially widen the wealth gap for Black and Hispanic households, as well as young adults, and increase hardship for landlords. Additionally, Aspen Institute estimates that 30 million to 40 million people could lose their shelter when the eviction moratorium ends, exacerbating the situation for emergency shelters. Despite the alarming trend in housing instability at the onset of the pandemic, the public sector provided short-term, ineffective solutions. Eviction moratoriums provided some relief, yet the current moratorium, which expires on December 31, does little to guarantee protections. Instead, this solution—merely an agreement declaration between tenants and landlords—postpones impending housing and financial disasters rather than eradicate problems renters may confront after the expiration, including paying back missed bills. Furthermore, this measure could exacerbate the risks for “mom and pop” landlords, exposing them to housing hardship, bankruptcy, or foreclosure due to an erosion of liquid assets. And our findings imply that housing resolutions did little to reduce the risks of financially vulnerable groups. More proactive and sustainable remedies are needed. Solutions should also be oriented not only to highly pronounced groups, such as Black and Hispanic families, but also to obscure and less pronounced groups, including young adults and noncorporate landlords. A universal housing voucher for those with income below a certain level is an effective remedy. This not only secures stable income for landlords, it also drastically reduces evictions and homelessness, as well as widespread discrimination against voucher tenants. Obviously, universal vouchers have a cost. Though the expenditure seems huge, it is far less than tax benefits for homeowners. The Office of Tax Analysis at the U.S. Department of Treasury estimates that the exclusion of imputed rent in 2020 reduced federal revenues by $126 billion. And we have the money; as of September 2020, the Department of Housing and Urban Development still has $134.5 billion that has not been allocated. In addition to monetary costs, there’s a public perception challenge, too. Paying for universal vouchers requires public consensus that every member is related to one other, especially in the era of contagion. Every member of society is impacted by this housing situation. If Black and Hispanic families are unable to pay off their rent and mortgage, their financial risks shift to their landlords and mortgage lenders. If young adults are evicted, the coronavirus could spread rapidly to older generations. Indeed, stable shelter is not only a fundamental human need for individuals, but also an imperative tool for society to combat the spread of the coronavirus.