They may be resilient, but it’s their age group that is taking the brunt of the economic downturn. Unemployment is skewed toward the younger ages (as they are the most likely to have jobs that can’t be done through telework) and are junior on the hierarchy once the economic impact starts to work up the economic food chain. Right now it’s a bummer that our kids can’t get internships (my son’s on hold as well) but most of us are probably thinking (hoping) that this is a temporary setback. That might be optimistic thinking. Law firms and other service providers, after furloughing support staff, are now starting to furlough the junior associates. So it’s starting to hit educated elites as well as wage-earners.
We surpassed Great Recession statistics within a month of voluntarily shutting down everything. We are headed rapidly toward Great Depression. By choice. Furthermore, it’s our young people more than we (some of whom are expecting to retire within 10-15 or so years) who will be stuck with the payback for the $2 trillion stimulus.
Not saying this wasn’t necessary for a time. We just have to add up the costs on BOTH sides of our collective decision to shut everything down. My understanding is that the success rate for a Coronavirus vaccine is 0%. So, even as we are learning about promising treatments to reverse the death toll and speed recovery, we have to understand that Covid-19 will be around for awhile.
At some point we are going to have to make the tough decision whether to treat this outbreak as more like a bad cold season or the Plague.