A way out of this mess

This week's top headlines: In Thailand and Nigeria, young people are at the forefront of protest movements to challenge governments that, they say, aren't working for their generation.  As the U.S. election nears, transgender voters find new obstacles at the polls, and Asian Americans take center stage in Georgia.  Conspiracy theories are on the rise. K-Pop fans are here to help. As much of the world settles into the realities of life with Covid, economists are beginning to turn their attention to the possible lasting effects of the virus and the stress it brings. While even the short-term future may seem unfathomable, the researchers argue that if we're ever going to get out of this mess, we have to think about what we'll need months or even years down the road. If pandemics of the past are any indication, Covid's effects on the economy -- and on mental wellbeing -- will have lasting impacts on future generations, experts warn. Offering targeted stimulus and government relief now could stop pandemic-induced problems from permanently scarring the economy. "There's a lot of people who may not realize that they've been negatively affected," said Vellore Arthi, an assistant professor of economics at the University of California, Irvine, and co-author of a new working paper "Disease, Downturns and Wellbeing: Economic History and the Long-Run Impacts of Covid-19." "People who get sick or who suffer in their work capacity later on, that ends up being economically costly to themselves but also to the wider economy." For example, the researchers found that the 1918 pandemic had adverse effects on babies in utero -- though the babies weren't sick, gestating through that anxious, stressful time had impacts that could be seen into early childhood and later life, Arthi said. Job loss typically weighs on future earnings, and financial uncertainty and precariousness tend to permanently change how we approach career risk and spending decisions. Intervening before these longer-term effects take root can have substantial and sometimes surprising outcomes. In one trenchant example, Arthi and her co-author, William & Mary associate professor of economics John Parman, point out that suicide rates, which had risen during the Great Depression, decreased after the government rolled out the New Deal.  "If we try to take some of these insights and work with them now we'd probably have the highest returns to any investments that we'd make," Arthi said. "We don't want to wait 30 years to discover that these are problems." Follow Us Get the newsletter By the Numbers Businesses owned by African Americans suffered more during the early days of Covid, but they've also rebounded a lot faster. Yes, bookstores, but black entrepreneurs are also getting in on the legal weed boom, selling high-end yarn to crafty types and generally riding a wave of consumer support ushered in by the summer's Black Lives Matter protests.    Sponsored Content by AARP When your employees are thriving, so is your business—with more productivity and less turnover. Today, nearly 1 in 6 employees have family caregiving responsibilities outside of work. Learn how you can support your workers (and improve your business) with helpful family caregiving resources from AARP.   Before You Go India's next big export could be teaching kids to code, remotely.  Domestic workers, many of whom are female, immigrants or both, have been hit particularly hard by the recession.  Can planting trees make a city more equitable? A U.S. coalition of cities, companies and non-profits is using urban planting to fight climate change and racial injustice at the same time.   No Playbook: Leading Through Uncertainty: Changes in the workplace have been accelerated by the pandemic and the ongoing U.S. reckoning on race. Join us Nov. 6 for the next Bloomberg Equality briefing as executives from Expensify and sponsor P&G discuss who is creating a blueprint for leading through these tumultuous times. Register here.   Like getting the Bloomberg Equality newsletter? Subscribe to Bloomberg.com for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and gain expert analysis from exclusive subscriber-only newsletters. Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can't find anywhere else. Learn more.   You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Bloomberg Equality newsletter. Unsubscribe | Bloomberg.com | Contact Us Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022