Last week, the total coronavirus death toll in the United States surpassed 100,000—a grim milestone in a battle that the Trump administration was not adequately prepared to fight. The United States now accounts for more than a quarter of the world’s COVID-19 deaths despite only accounting for roughly 4 percent of its population. The Trump administration’s failed public health response is mirrored by its failure to respond to the economic crisis, which has led to an economic fallout that sets the United States apart from other high-income nations.
With some 37.6 million Americans filing for unemployment insurance since the beginning of March and the official unemployment rate reaching 14.7 percent in April—a level not seen since the Great Depression—the American economy is in a disastrous state, with repercussions expected for years to come. The level of economic and public health pain that Americans are now experiencing, however, was not inevitable, but rather the consequence of a series of policy failures that started well before the coronavirus outbreak. The Trump administration’s past actions weakened the United States’ ability to respond to the pandemic, and its current actions continue to exacerbate the dual public health and economic crises. Although Congress was able to pass a series of stimulus measures that have blunted the economic pain for families, this relief happened in spite of the Trump administration, not because of it.
The weakness of the Trump administration’s economic response to the coronavirus crisis—much like the failure of its public health response—can be seen in comparison with the United States’ international peers. As demonstrated by the experiences of peer nations, a rapid and coordinated public health response could have contained the pandemic more effectively and reduced the mounting economic losses. Instead, it seems as though the United States is getting the worst of both: the highest death toll of any country and what will likely be the sharpest economic contraction in American history. Continue reading.