But the country was ill-prepared to do better | Graphic detail
Highlights
- America had little experience with anything approaching that sort of drastic intervention.
- Its hastily designed scheme sent much of its relief money to people who didn’t need it.
- But the country was ill-prepared to do better: crafting a targeted policy would have been hard, expensive and slow.
- European countries did better: governments encouraged struggling employers to keep workers on their payrolls with reduced hours, and then made up some or all of the pay gap.
- If America hopes to waste less money in future crises, it should plan ahead, says the study’s authors.
- The author of this piece worked with David Autor, a member of the team who wrote the paper referenced in this article, but took no part in this research.