To be sure, some states made progress in these areas in the years between the beginning of the Great Recession and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. [...] This estimate does not include extensive but difficult-to-measure costs to fight the virus, educate students effectively during a pandemic, and help people and businesses struggling due to the pandemic and its effects.4) To close their budget shortfalls during the Great Recession, states could have focused on policy approaches that protected families and communities from the worst of the economic. [...] In addition, states and localities began laying off workers in the summer of 2008, the start of the first state fiscal year during the recession, and continued layoffs for the next five years; by the summer of 2013, they had laid off nearly 750,000 people. [...] (See Figure 1.) Harsh state spending cuts and other damaging state and local policy choices in the aftermath of the downturn added to challenges facing households of color and immigrants, further widened racial and class inequities, and left the country less prepared to cope with the current, pandemic-driven downturn. [...] Protect State Finances and Build More Equitable Tax Systems The health and adequacy of state finances are critical to addressing the dire needs of those hit hardest by the crisis and dismantling longstanding racial and economic inequality, but state budgets face severe pressure from the COVID-19 outbreak and economic fallout.
- Pages
- 17
- Published in
- United States of America
