Bipartisanship Rising in America's Response for COVID-19. NewsWire

NEWSWIRE: 3/23/20

• According to a new Pew study released on March 18, more Americans see COVID-19 as a major threat to the economy (70%) than to the nation’s health (47%). About a third see it as a major threat to their own finances: Many people, especially lower-paid service workers, are not getting paid at all as their industries hunker down. (Pew Research Center)
• NH: There are two major narratives running through this Pew piece. The first is a growing bipartisan agreement on the magnitude of the crisis. The second is how much your personal anxieties about the pandemic probably depend on your demographic.
• First, what does the public think about the nation's policy response? 
• To be sure, the nation’s views on Trump’s response to the virus fall along predictable party lines. See first chart below. 68% of Republicans think that Trump got the risks of COVID-19 “about right,” while 79% of Democrats think Trump has not taken the risks seriously enough. While Trump's initial nonchalance about the virus unquestionably hurt his approval ratings, his greater perceived sense of urgency over the last two weeks has coincided with a ratings recovery.
• At the same time, however, we are beginning to see less polarization overall. Americans' views of the pandemic are coalescing around widely agreed-upon perceptions. Take the CDC. 63% of Republicans and 64% of Democrats think that the CDC got the risks about right. On top of that, 88% of Republicans and 81% of Democrats think the CDC’s response to the pandemic has been either “very good” or “somewhat good.” Republicans continue to be less likely than Democrats to regard the pandemic as a major threat to "the health of the U.S. population as a whole" or to "day-to-day life your community." But they are both coming to agree (62% to 77%) that it is a major threat to the U.S. economy. According to a Reuters poll, Americans in both parties agree on most of the shut-down policies enacted by the President and state governors.
• Second, how do personal anxieties differ according to your demographic?
• If you're older, Pew found that you're more likely to agree that the virus is a major threat to your personal health. In the age 65+ bracket, 33% agreed. In the under-30 bracket, 23% agreed.
• On the other hand, if you're younger, you're more likely to agree that that the virus is a major threat to your economic survival. In the under-30 bracket, 42% agreed that it would be "difficult to keep up with basic expenses if they could not work for at least two weeks because of the coronavirus." In the 30-to-64 bracket, 32% agreed. And in the 65+ bracket, only 19% agreed.
• The Pew study also found that educated Americans were much less likely to feel economically at risk. 46% of high-school (or less) Americans worried about the consequences of no work for two weeks--versus only 18% of college grads and 12% of post-grads. Hispanics (47%) and blacks (38%) likewise feel more at risk than whites (29%).
• This stark socioeconomic divide can be explained in part by the insecure, part-time nature of so many jobs held by less-educated, lower-paid Americans. But it can also be explained by the fact that it's much less likely that their work can be performed at home. Only 20% of African Americans and 16% of Hispanics say they can work from home--versus 30% of whites and 37% of Asian Americans. Only 4% of Americans without a high school education say they can work from their home--versus 52% of those with BAs or higher. . .
• The economic risks of this pandemic are borne very disproportionately by social class. Those with the lowest earnings and the least job security or benefits are more likely to work in those industries that are the first to be shut down. And yet even if they are allowed to keep working, they are the most likely to have to risk exposure to the virus to work at all...

• The COVID-19 outbreak has sparked “a generational war” between the Boomers and Silent who are at high risk and the Millennials who refuse to stay home. Reports of packed bars and beaches are frustrating efforts to slow the spread of the virus, particularly in Europe and North America. (The Wall Street Journal)
• NH: Wouldn't you know it? Those Millennials... they still like to party hardy and couldn't care less about the epidemic threat hitting the world. This WSJ feature story, about Millennials whooping it up in nightclubs around the world, got shared a lot. As did this video from a top WHO official warning Millennials to "start taking this virus seriously." As have countless other newspaper editorials (like this one) intoning gravely how Millennials need to stop being "irresponsible and selfish."
• Just one thing: All these claims are purely anecdotal.
• In fact, as Likhitha Butchireddygari points out on 538, the survey evidence to date indicates very little difference among age groups in how seriously they are taking the COVID-19 epidemic. Overall, it is true, young adults are somewhat less likely to worry that they or someone they know would catch the virus. Out of five polls, two found a 10-point gap in worry, with 65% of the oldest group saying they were "somewhat" or "very" concerned versus about 55% of the youngest group. Yet another one of the five polls found a 10-point gap in the other direction.
• If you consider the massive difference in mortality risk to the two age groups, however, one might wonder why the gap isn't larger that it is. Many young adults, indeed, are upset by the careless attitude and response of their own Boomer parents (or Silent grandparents), who may still be socializing or exercising in large groups despite the obvious risks. And why are all of the septua- and octogenarians in Congress so slow to take protective action themselves?
• As for behavioral change, Millennials are at least as likely to say they are practicing self-isolation and social distancing as their parents' generation. They are more likely to say that they have changed their work routine or are avoiding large crowds due to the coronavirus. They're more worried about spreading the virus to others. They're about as likely to say they're avoiding restaurants or practicing 6-foot social distancing "when possible."
• In most situations, Millennials and Homelanders are more averse to taking personal risks than older generations were at the same age. When they see data indicating that their personal behavior affects the community, they try at least as hard as other generations to adjust. And they're probably more accustomed to home-based self-care than older generations. (Xer parents have trained today's kids well: Indeed, that's one reason why we call post-Millennials "Homelanders.") Overall, today's younger generations are doing a reasonably good job at following through with what is being asked of them. Unquestionably, in terms of lost earnings, those in their 20s and 30s will bear a relatively heavy share of the aggregate economic pain generated by the current lockdown.

• It’s a question some demographers are already asking: How will COVID-19 impact fertility rates? Historical research on epidemics indicates that fertility tends to decline in the short term and rebound in the long term, but the effect is far from consistent and heavily dependent on the scale and nature of the crisis. (Institute for Family Studies)
• NH: The historical evidence suggests that the impact of deadly disasters on fertility is highly variable. It depends mostly on the severity of the disaster.
• At the mild end--if the "disaster" consists mostly of events or warnings that keep people at home but don't actually result in much loss of life or property--the impact is often positive. Prolonged power outages frequently cause fertility rates to rise nine months later. So do low-severity storm advisories. (Contrary to "Netflix and chill" urban legend, the rise does not occur among single young adults; it occurs among married couples, especially those who already have one child.)
• But as the severity of the disaster rises, the effect on fertility quickly turns negative. For example, as storm warnings shift from "tropical storm watches" to "severe hurricane advisories," later fertility declines. And once the emergency is associated with a significant rise in the regional death rate, the suppression becomes stronger. Once the death rate during the crisis rises 60% or more over normal monthly levels, the fertility impact is always negative. Hubei Province certainly exceeded that threshold in February, and Italy is hitting it today. It remains to be seen how many other countries will hit it as well--and for how long.
• The threshold mortality delta is well-illustrated in the first chart below. Note that Lyman Stone, the IFS author, includes a variety of hurricane, tornado, earthquake, and epidemic disasters. In the second and third charts below, he shows the negative fertility hit in each case. But he also observes a well-known demographic fact: Short-term fertility falls are typically followed by short-term fertility rebounds. In nearly all societies, social institutions and each couple's longer-term "target fertility" tends to compensate falls with rebounds so that longer-term population growth is relatively unaffected.
• What is likely to happen if COVID-19 turns into a significant mortality event in America? Stone offers two hypothetical scenarios (see chart three). One assumes an infection rate of 10% and a CFR of 0.5%; the other assumes an infection rate of 30% and a CFR of 3.5%. IMO, a more plausible scenario would be a higher infection rate (>50%) with a low-end CFR (between 0.5% and 1.0%). Given the curves he draws, that would likely lead as well to a significant fertility fall--and later rebound.

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• More than a decade after the Great Recession, early-wave Millennials are still wary of investing. The financial crisis left an indelible mark on their attitudes toward risk and spending, with many staying out of the markets and saving their money to stay on top of daily expenses instead. (The Wall Street Journal)
• NH: This piece is part of a multi-part series of articles that the WSJ ran a couple of weeks ago focused on Millennials and their attitudes towards money and investing. Reading through the pieces, a few themes emerge: how the 2008 financial crisis looms large in their memories; a strong desire to grow their financial literacy; and broad interest in sustainability, ESG investing, and putting their values where their money is.
• Of all these themes, the one we hear the most about is the last one. If you see news about a climate change protest or sustainable fashion, you can be sure a 20- or 30-something will be mentioned somewhere in it. Yet while young people are undoubtedly more concerned about environmentalism, there’s little evidence that these concerns are affecting their behavior yet in significant ways.
• Fully 44% of Millennials say they’re interested in socially responsible investing—but the vast majority haven’t heard of ESGs. Half say they want to start investing, but just don’t know where to begin. Those juggling six-figure student debt loads and bouncing from freelance gig to gig just don’t have enough money—and even those with stable jobs don’t feel financially stable. They’re focused on immediate needs, which for some means building up an emergency fund, and for others means spending freely and living in the moment. Either way, investing is off the table until they feel more confident financially. Which, frankly, is a tall order.
• What banks and fund managers need to understand is that Millennials’ financial decisions have all been made in the long shadow of the Great Recession. It’s not that they reject investing; it’s that they’re more afraid of making a mistake and losing it all. That’s why they’re drawn to passive-management options. That’s why they want to learn about investing even when they’re not in a financial position to invest. (See “Investors Pass on Active Management,” “Millennials Practice Safe Finance,” “Millennials Save Early and Often,” and “The Future of Investing.”)
• The latest market plunge can’t be helping their jitters. Sure, they still have plenty of time to recover before retirement—but for Millennials, what’s happening now probably feels like a terrible echo of the financial scenario they have spent their whole adult lives trying to avoid. 

• Over the past seven years, national bus ridership has fallen to its lowest level since the mid-’70s. Transit agencies are struggling to contend with forces largely out of their control: the rise of ride-sharing, the changing nature of work, and the aging of a generation that wasn’t raised on public transit. (The New York Times)
• NH: The per-capita use of buses--along with the use of other forms of mass transit like trolleys, subways, and light rail--has been fighting a losing battle with automobiles over most of the postwar era. You can credit that trend to the rise of the suburbs and interstates, a massive investment in road infrastructure, and the declining (real) cost of autos and gas. And maybe you can give some credit too to the emergence of more individualistic generations (Boomers and Xers) who like to be in "personal control" of their own transportation.
• Over the last decade or so, though, one might have expected a counter-trend. More jobs have moved to cities, making commuting by car a hassle. The economy has been generally strong, making commuting a major reason for transportation. And a new generation of Millennial young adults are clearly less attached to the romance of the automobile.
• Still, the use of mass transit continues to suffer--and the use of buses continues to suffer most of all. And for a variety of reasons. Ride-sharing companies like Uber now offer users a personal and comfortable experience without the hassle of car ownership. The popularity of suburban residence favors subways and trains that travel farther and fit more people. The gentrification of the fastest-growing cities has pushed out the poor that are more likely to use the bus (since it’s the cheapest form of public transportation). More people are working at home. And the generations of workers who are most used to taking buses are retiring. Bus ridership peaked in 1970--a 21-year-old then is now 71 years old.
• What might be surprising to all the bus haters is that buses have actually been upgrading more than any other form of public transportation despite low ridership. The average age of a bus in the US is 8 years while most other forms of public transit are 25 years old (see chart below). Buses are more equipped than trains with passenger amenities like WiFi, bike storage, app tracking, and security cameras (see charts 2 and 3). And bus stations are more accessible than any other form of public transportation; 95% of bus stations are handicap accessible while second place goes to streetcars at 88%.
• But despite all these efforts, the bus remains unloved. Even the long-distance bus. Amazingly, you can travel by regional Amtrak from Washington, DC, to downtown New York City in 3:30 for $70. Or you can take the bus, get there in 3:45, pay only $10, and enjoy better seats and better WiFi. IMO, the main deterrent to bus ridership is social stigma. And that's a tough penalty for any brand to overcome.

• Despite having the most generous family leave policies in the world, Nordic countries are struggling with the same fertility problems as other high-income regions. According to an extensive new report, the only Nordic region where more people are born than die is the Faroe Islands. (State of the Nordic Region 2020)
• NH: What do Iceland, Finland, and Norway have in common? They’re all facing the lowest fertility rates ever recorded in their countries. Though Nordic countries are often cited as a model for family-friendly policies that promote work-life balance, they too are facing steep declines in their fertility rates. The fertility rate in Iceland, for instance, has declined from 2.2 children per woman in 2009 to 1.7 today. In Finland, the fertility rate has fallen from 1.9 children per woman in 2010 to 1.4 today. It’s only because of comparatively higher rates in Sweden (1.76) and Denmark (1.72) that the average fertility rate of Nordic countries is above the EU average (about 1.5).
• This region has been seeing fertility rate declines for some time. With the exception of Iceland, most of the Nordic countries have had fertility rates at or below replacement level since 1975. And like in other parts of the world, the average age at which women have their first child in these countries has been rising. Many of the gender and social equality measures that we associate with Nordic countries--generous paid leave for moms and dads, free daycare, a strong welfare system, etc.--have been in place since the 1960s. These facts alone drive home the point that low fertility is not just the result of family-unfriendly public policies that don't support women in the workplace.
• To be sure, public policy can make a difference. Sweden, for example, offers the longest parental leave of all Nordic countries and Iceland the shortest. That’s not a coincidence. Finland’s recent decision to shore up its parental leave can only help tip the balance in the right direction. But it’s not a cure-all. As I have mentioned elsewhere (see "Nations Labor to Raise Their Birthrates" and "Hungarian Officials Say Having More Children is a Public Responsibility"), a major competitor to the progressive Nordic model, which emphasizes help for working moms, is the new "populist" pronatalism of Central and Eastern Europe, which emphasizes help for all moms, working or not. Time may tell which approach works better.

• Over the past four decades, marriage rates among middle-class Americans have fallen more sharply than the rates among the most and least affluent. Marriage and its financial and social benefits are increasingly becoming “a luxury good” reserved for the rich and well-educated. (The Wall Street Journal)
• NH: If you went to high school before, say, 1980, it’s likely that all the people you knew who graduated and didn’t continue on to college did the same thing. They soon got married. Now that logic has reversed. You’re more likely to see those with college degrees and higher salaries getting married, years after they’ve checked off a long list of adult milestones.
• Marriage is no longer the cornerstone that marks the start of adult life. It’s the capstone you achieve after you’ve crossed the finish line--and mainly for those who do cross the finish line. Today, a larger proportion of top-earning Americans (60%) than middle-class Americans (52%) are married.
• This is a trend we’ve followed and discussed for many years. (See “More Babies Born to Cohabiting Parents.”) It was a central theme in Charles Murray’s influential book Coming Apart, which characterized marriage as one of the major fault lines dividing the haves and have-nots among whites. Among Americans ages 25 to 34, the median wealth of married couples is four times that of couples who live together but aren’t married.
• The desire to marry among young people is still high, but strained finances and the declining share of jobs that pay good wages without a college education have made marriage a far more uncertain bet among working-class Americans. The gender calculus has also changed: As women’s earnings and education have increased, and working-class men’s prospects have decreased, the incentives to marry are no longer what they once were. (See "Millennial Women Just Can't Find Enough Good Men.") The result? As of 2017, living together has outpaced marriage to become the most common living arrangement among Americans with romantic partners. (See “Cohabitation Takes Over Marriage as Most Common Relationship.”)

• Meanwhile, at home, it’s Generation X’s time to shine: According to op-ed columnist Christopher Borrelli, his generation was born to self-quarantine. Growing up, Xers came home to empty houses and were forced to fill their time alone; today, he explains, they’re “weirdly prepared for alienation.” (Chicago Tribune)

• NH: Gen Xers have been absent from the clashes over social distancing. Instead, the orders to hunker down and stay inside have inspired an entirely different reaction: nostalgia. Social media is filling up with tweets and comments from Gen Xers reminiscing over their "home alone" childhoods and bragging about their ability to keep themselves entertained for hours--as though they were still eating sugar frosted flakes in some Steven Spielberg movie. Borrelli writes that as a child, he learned to roll with the punches in an environment where parents were scarce, boredom abounded, and “nuclear war…was never far from your mind, more like an inevitability than a chance.”
• On Twitter, Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts summarized the life of a Gen-X kid: “Wake up and immediately go outside; play with dangerous things in dangerous places. Show up for dinner 14 hours later; parents are surprised to learn you weren’t home. Eat fishsticks alone while watching tv. Read in bed with flashlight.”
• Years of cable TV and microwave dinners have steeled Xers for this indefinite stretch of home-sitting. The irony, though, is that they’re the least likely to be staying in alone right now. Many are teleworking while wrangling school-aged kids, unable to truly socially distance or even have a moment to themselves. They allow no unsupervised bike rides or neighborhood wandering for their own "Homelander" kids, who are indeed truly homebound (though not alone!) to an extent the Xers never were.
• A review of recent studies finally delivers a verdict on Alcoholics Anonymous: It’s more effective than other treatments in helping people stop drinking. Multiple studies have found that A.A. results in higher rates of abstinence and remission, and is also less costly than approaches that involve the health care system. (The New York Times)
• NH: Millions of Americans swear by AA--and have sworn off due to AA. But academics have long cautioned that controlled studies have yet to offer convincing proof that AA-type treatment (peer-supported 12-step programs) are superior to any other treatment options. The NYT itself wrote up one of these cautionary reports back in 2006.
• Now, it seems, a new meta-analysis of the latest evidence has persuaded the NYT to revise its judgment. New controlled studies indicate that AA works better than other options in several of most important indicators of recovery, especially long-term abstinence and remission. And that AA works as well as other options is just about every other measure, such as severity of drinking and health effects. Oh, and one other thing: AA is free and is available in nearly every community. Which means it constitutes a vast cost savings over other "professional" treatment options.
• The adverse health consequences of alcohol abuse are staggering. Globally, it is responsible for perhaps tens times as many deaths as the number of fatalities from all illicit drugs combined. Here in the United States, alcohol was mentioned on the death certificates of 72,558 Americans in 2017, roughly twice as many as in 1999. (Boomers as they get older are taking their heavier drinking habits with them; see "Binge Drinking Surges Among Older Adults.") It's not just about what alcohol abusers do to themselves. It's also what they do to others--in everything from driving accidents to spousal abuse.
• A significant drop in alcohol abuse would have greater and much more rapid impact on overall U.S. longevity than even the most promising anti-cancer strategies (like pharmacogenomics) now being pursued by Big Pharma. But it wouldn't cost a hundred billion dollars. In fact, it wouldn't cost anything at all. It would simply involve changing our culture so that more people understand the vital role of beliefs, behavior, lifestyle, and community in determining our health.

DID YOU KNOW?

Social Distance and Chill. As more Americans are ordered to stay inside, the share that is turning to streaming services for entertainment is growing. When asked in a March 13-16 poll by Morning Consult, 19% of respondents said they were likely to spend more on movie and TV streaming services because of the COVID-19 pandemic, while 11% expected the same for music streaming. That’s compared to 10% and 6%, respectively, just a week ago. Between the two surveys, the two generations that saw the highest growth were Millennials and Boomers. The share of Millennials who said they expect to spend more on streaming video surged from 14% to 26%; among Boomers, this grew from 6% to 15%. For both movies and music, Millennials lead the way in potential spending, but not by much: The overall range across the age ladder is less than 15%. Already, in Europe, both YouTube and Netflix have cut streaming quality for 30 days in order to accommodate greater demand.