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Don’t Call It Economic Stimulus: It’s Disaster Relief
And it’s looking less and less likely by the day
When the country largely shut down in March and April of this year to try and contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, many people were let go from their jobs. In response, Congress put the CARES Act to work: it passed legislation to provide economic relief to the millions of American workers who longer had any source of income.
And then everyone started referring to is as “economic stimulus.” As if the economy were just a little sleepy and needed some caffeine. A little jolt to get it going. But what had really happened was that an economic disaster, the proportions of which we have never seen in our lifetimes — and probably even the lifetimes of anyone alive.
We’re still in the midst of this economic disaster caused by a global pandemic. And we should refer to the funds provided with taxpayer money to keep us alive as disaster relief, not as stimulus.
The New York Times’s Paul Krugman wrote extensively about this topic in April. He made the very apt metaphor that the American economy was placed into a medically induced coma in order to focus on survival by mitigating death and illness, and not overwhelming an already fragile and fraught American healthcare system.
