None of us expected 2020 to be the year a global pandemic would completely change the way we interact with each other and the world. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have been felt across the globe, in almost every community and in every household. The pandemic has not only hurt families’ and individuals’ financial and mental health, it will also continue to change and impact the global economy for years to come.
Financial impact
One way that the pandemic has affected families and individuals is their finances. All businesses and restaurants were shut down during the quarantine leaving 5.5 million applying for unemployment by the end of the first month. Currently, there are still 12,112,250 experiencing unemployment. Unemployment benefits were temporarily extended to allow more people to qualify, providing 50 percent of their weekly pay rate as well as an additional $600 per week in benefits.
Unfortunately, due to the high rate of unemployment and surge in applications, some people fell through the cracks. For example, Cabrini junior Lauren Swint applied for unemployment and didn’t receive any payment for weeks. She simply got a letter stating her application was still being processed. Finally, she was able to apply for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). She was approved for the program and received a large check, which she used to pay her tuition bill. Like her, many people who weren’t able to qualify for unemployment were able to apply for PUA. As of right now there are 1,997,263 who have successfully applied.
Small family-owned stores and restaurants have been forced to close their doors because of the lack of business, leaving them unable to afford rent. Employees like cashiers or front desk workers at these businesses are unemployed as a result, unable to earn money to feed their families or pay rent. This also leaves the community around them without a place for people to go to buy food and essentials. The result is people who have now lost their access to food and other essential resources, forcing them to find a different place to go, which could be difficult or impossible, depending on where they live.
Mental health impact
The COVID-19 pandemic has also negatively affected families’ and individuals’ mental states. Mental health problems have taken a big toll on people during quarantine, due partially to a rise in ‘pandemic anxiety’ because of the uncertainty in the world.
The Centers for Disease Control conducted a study at the end of June and found that out of 731 people age 18-24 surveyed, 49.1 percent reported developing/increased symptoms of anxiety disorders, 52.3 percent reported developing/increased symptoms of depressive disorders, and 46 percent reported developing/increased symptoms of trauma/stressor-related disorders.
Provided by Anthony Frasca.
Anthony Frasca, a junior education major, reported that this pandemic has increased his stress levels. He said the last basic skills test he needed to complete for his education degree has been postponed for months since the testing center was shut down due to COVID-19 back in March.
These changes are hard enough for the average person, but it may disproportionately affect people with disabilities, especially students. “Not everyone can simply adapt, it’s hard,” Lauren Swint said, speaking about her autistic younger brother’s struggle trying to figure out online school. Even after being in school for a few weeks, it was still a struggle for him to focus on his classwork and understand what is being taught. Their family often had to take extra time to help him, doing a sort of reteaching to help him retain what he learned in his classes.
Economic impact
On top of all these effects on families and individuals, the pandemic will also affect our economy for years to come. In the short term, governments’ policies have allowed restaurants and stores to stay afloat by providing them with loans to continue paying their bills and employees. Unfortunately, most of these restaurants won’t be able to stay through the winter, and as Dr. Eric Malm, economics professor, said, “you can’t run a restaurant if only a quarter of tables are full.”
Provided by the Cabrini university website.
Many companies are beginning to decide whether to stay online after COVID has passed, or come back in. Google, for example, created a Twitter poll for their employees to figure out whether they wanted to continue working from home or if they would rather come in for work. The results showed that a majority of their employees would rather remain working from home than come back.
Multiple state governments, including Pennsylvania’s Governor Tom Wolf, extended eviction protection for those who lost their jobs and source of income because of the pandemic. This has allowed families to continue to stay in their homes even while they’re experiencing unemployment. Malm says this is just “kicking the can down the road” because for right now they can stay in their homes, but it can’t stay like that forever. If people continue to be unable to afford rent, then it comes down to the property owners of the apartment complexes who can’t pay their mortgages, which will eventually leave both renters and landlords out of money and leave renters out of a home.
How do these intersect?
These areas of impact aren’t independent from one another, they’re intertwined and intersectional. Every family is experiencing difficulties obtaining necessities for a variety of reasons including shipment delays, stores not getting enough resources and places being shut down. This is resulting in the economy swaying and affecting businesses and how they price certain products or how much people can afford. This is causing small and family owned businesses to struggle to stay open and having to let go of employees because they are unable to pay their wages. Larger companies are having larger layoffs because of the drastic change in income leaving the employees that are still working there strained and tired.
Businesses struggling, being unable to pay your bills, the inability to feed your family and increasing concern of your state’s economy are just a few things this pandemic has caused that increases concerns about anxiety disorders, depressive disorders and addiction. Each of these aspects of the COVID-19 concerns – the financial impact, effect on mental health and long-term impact on the global economy – are each incredibly significant in their own right. While they will be individually dissected and analyzed years after the pandemic has passed its worst phase, we need to examine all of the effects together through intersectional lenses to truly understand how the COVID-19 pandemic is changing society and our interactions with the world around us.
