The sixth installment of a blog series of 13 sharing art, articles, and abstract ideas that spark a contagious conversation.
Many predictions of the economic and social costs of our current pandemic are based on the effects of the influenza pandemic of 1918. The influenza pandemic in the United States occurred in three waves during 1918 and 1919. The first wave began in March 1918 and lasted throughout the summer of 1918. The more devastating second and third waves (the second being the worst) occurred in the fall of 1918 and the spring of 1919. Although it originated in the U.S., according to one researcher:
“Spanish influenza moved across the United States in the same way as the pioneers had, for it followed their trails which had become railroads…the pandemic started along the axis from Massachusetts to Virginia…leaped the Appalachians…positioned along the inland waterways…it jumped clear
across the plains and the Rockies to Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. Then, with secure bases on both coasts…took its time to seep into every niche and corner of America.”
As COVID-19 seeps into every niche and corner of modern America, the question of cost is on all of our minds. What will this pandemic cost us? Will the unemployment rate ever jump back to normal? How can the stock market come back from this? The Bureau for Labor Statistics’ April 2020 job report reveals that the unemployment rate is currently 14.7%. The jump from March 2020’s 10.3% rate to April’s rate is the highest unemployment rate month-to-month increase since reporting started in 1948.
The George Mason Univeristy Mercatus Center reseachers estimate that the real GDP growth rate will decline 5 percent for each month of partial economic shutdown. Therefore, the economic cost of the first two months spent fighting the pandemic will be $2.14 trillion (10 percent), which is surprisingly close to the static fiscal cost of the CARES Act.
At a time when there’s concern about a global economic downturn, a study from August 2019 circulated as a working paper in the National Bureau of Economic Research, warns of a far bigger cut to economic growth if global warming goes unchecked. The Washington Post wrote an article titled,”Climate change could cost the U.S. up to 10.5 percent of its GDP by 2100, study finds” that nearly broke the comments section.
“What our study suggests is that climate change is costly for all countries under the business as usual scenario (no matter whether they are hot or cold, rich or poor), and the United States will be one of the countries that will suffer the most (reflecting sharp increases in U.S. average temperatures by 2100),” study co-author Kamiar Mohaddes, an economist at the University of Cambridge reports.
Extreme weather events, cuts to worker productivity and other effects of climate change could cause major global economic losses unless greenhouse gas emissions are significantly curtailed in the next few decades. Climate change constitutes a looming financial risk, even in the midst of COVID-19 chaos.
Written by Tatum Eames, Western Washington University Senior and Climate Justice Now Intern.