Listen to “How Long Can We Afford to Keep the Economy Shuttered?” on Spreaker.
On Thursday, the Labor Department announced 6.6 million people filed for first-time unemployment last week. In the past three weeks, more than 16 million Americans lost their jobs.
How much longer can our economy afford to be locked down? How fast can it get up and running once it is restarted? And what policies will be most helpful?
Dr. Gary Wolfram teaches political economy at Hillsdale College. He addresses these questions, explains why strong government action is needed in a crisis like this, and why suggestions by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel and others that we need to ban large gatherings for 12-18 months is simply unrealistic.
