COVID-19 VS THE ECONOMY

One of the most interesting things that we do at Amber Integrated is our quarterly poll, which measures voter attitudes on a wide range of topics. It was especially fascinating to watch how those voter attitudes — about our elected leaders, the direction of the state, and various issues - changed over the course of 2020 during the global pandemic.

Nationally, much of the public policy debate has centered around taking aggressive steps to fight COVID (mainly by closing things down) and preserving our economy (mainly by keeping things open). In Oklahoma — with the exception of a vigorous debate over a statewide mask mandate — that debate has seemed relatively muted. However, with the Legislature returning to the State Capitol in February, could we see this fight come to Oklahoma? Page 6 of our poll says it might be coming. When asked the most pressing issue the Legislature should address in the upcoming session, 28% of respondents said COVID while 27% said jobs and the economy. The only other issue seeing double digits was education at a distant 13%. It tracks well that the two most significant issues facing us as cities, states, and a Nation would be one and two on the list. Our children's education coming in third makes sense as well, especially as parents, teachers, administrators, and students are navigating digital learning during the pandemic. However, the fact that no other issues received double digits is interesting, with only Law & Order and Health Care making it out of the margin of error. Taking a deeper dive, it’s also clear that partisanship plays a major roll in identifying priorities. For Republican respondents, four issues stand out as priorities: 35% identify Jobs and Economy as their number one issue, 19% COVID, 15% Law & Order, and Education gets 12%. For Democrats, only three issues break the 10% mark: COVID with 42%, Education at 18%, and Jobs and Economy at 12%. This shows the stark difference between the parties, as both see the job of government differently. As I write this, we see the second round of COVID relief, and it will be interesting to see if the American public believes this is acceptable. Click here to see the full poll.

Outside of the poll, other numbers are also interesting. In December, the Department of Labor reported 10.7 million Americans were unemployed. Documents from November 2020 reported there were only 6.527 million job openings in the U.S; thus, the void between those unemployed and job openings in the U.S. is sizable. For those who usually speak of debt and monetary policy, COVID has been almost identical to the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. In 2020 the federal government increased its deficit by nearly 218% to 3.13 trillion dollars. In 2009, the increase was 208% from the 2008 financial crisis's bailout. Small businesses seem to be paying the price today, with the National Restaurant Association warning that “more than 500,000 restaurants are in free fall.” It isn't easy to look at monetary policy when the following claims are being made: that one in four households haven't been able to meet their monthly bills since March, that one in three households dipped into savings or retirement accounts over the past year, and that one in six people have borrowed from a family or friend to cover bills this year.

The 2008 crisis left the theme of "Too Big To Fail." Hopefully, we don't look back at 2020 and see businesses that were "too small to save." The fight between COVID and the economy isn’t close to being over; as state governments begin to head into session, we will see what different states choose to prioritize.