America’s K–12 students are slowly rebounding from both academic and socioemotional disruptions experienced during the early period of the COVID-19 pandemic. As data have become available, it is clear that the pandemic’s negative effects are substantial but uneven. In this report, we use estimates from the Social Genome Model to predict how pandemic-related disruptions may affect children into adulthood. Specifically, we project how the pandemic’s cognitive and emotional impacts on schoolchildren may affect their degree attainment and lifetime earnings.We estimate that academic disruptions from the pandemic, if not mitigated by interventions, would likely reduce annual earnings at age 30 by 1.2 to 3.2 percent (or $400 to $1,100 in 2018 dollars), depending on age, and predicted lifetime earnings by 0.7 to 1.8 percent (or $5,200 to $11,700 in 2018 discounted present-value dollars). Our model predicts a larger effect for those in early adolescence—around age 15—who have less time to catch up before entering higher education and the workforce. Our model also predicts declines in high school degree attainment (a decline of 0.58 to 1.18 percentage points, depending on age) and in bachelor’s degree attainment (a decline of 0.25 to 0.59 percentage points), if there is no additional action on pandemic-related learning loss.
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- United States of America