Giving Compass' Take:

• Arindrajit Dube summarizes his recent presentation on how improving unemployment insurance can insulate workers from coronavirus' economic impact.

• We're already beginning to feel the economic consequences of COVID-19. How can you offer your support to demographics of the population who're suffering financially? What can you do to propel essential legislation forward?

• Learn more about the importance of your coronavirus giving.

On March 24, my colleagues Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman at the University of California, Berkeley, gathered some 100 fellow economists and other experts online to discuss the actions the U.S. Congress and the president need to take now to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus lockdown on people and the economy. As one of the presenters at the online conference, my focus was on how best to use the Unemployment Insurance system, a critical part of the solution for laid-off workers and the economy more broadly.

I am focused on unemployment insurance for several reasons. First is the most obvious one: The Unemployment Insurance system is up and running, and we understand how it works. Second, it’s relatively fast. It can get checks out in weeks, not months. Third, it’s highly targeted. It goes to those losing part or all of their jobs, exactly the people who are being hurt the most. Fourth, the Unemployment Insurance system allows multiple options for retaining those employer-employee connections, including temporary layoffs, partial benefits—a reduction of hours with partial unemployment benefits—and, work sharing, in which an employer, instead of laying off, say, 30 percent of workers, reduces all workers’ hours by 30 percent, and the government fills in the rest of their income with these benefits.

Many of the proposals I talked about last week have been incorporated in some form into the legislation that was just signed into law, and some were not. There will be time to address more of these issues now that the first major bill is complete, but this is an important step.

Read the full article about how unemployment insurance can combat COVID-19 by Arindrajit Dube at Equitable Growth.