April 2020
24Apr

Labor Markets During the Covid-19 Crisis: A Preliminary View

By Olivier Coibion, Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Michael Weber We use a repeated large-scale survey of households in the Nielsen Homescan panel to characterize how labor markets are being affected by the covid-19 pandemic. We document several facts. First, job loss has been significantly larger than implied by new unemployment claims: we estimate 20 million lost jobs by April 8th, far more than jobs lost over the entire Great Recession. Second, many of those losing jobs are not actively looking to...

April 24, 2020
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23Apr

Ghana’s Social Protection And Public Choices In The Days Of Covid-19

We cannot know how society protects its weakest and vulnerable, those at the bottom of society from deprivation until a catastrophe such as COVID-19, the 'unseeable, undead, unliving blob', to use the words of Arundhati Roy, is unleashed on us. Read also South Africa. The dichotomy between what pension scheme members want and what they get Ghana has a sub-optimal social protection system, its inadequacy due to our informal and poor information system. COVID-19 has amplified these weaknesses, unleashing a...

April 23, 2020
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23Apr

South Africa. The dichotomy between what pension scheme members want and what they get

The one thing an investment linked living annuity (also known as a living annuity, or illas) does not do is give pensioners a secure income flow. Few pensioners are likely to be financially secure until death. The advent of Covid-19 and the junking of South Africa’s debt makes it far worse when share prices and dividend payments drop. Most living annuity pensioners had already received a serious body blow even before the virus and the downgrade of South...

April 23, 2020
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22Apr

Ireland. Over 1 MILLION people now claiming social protection payments

The number of people now claiming some form of social protection payment has exceeded 1m after another 50,000 people received the COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment. The Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection has issued the €350 weekly payment to 584,000 people who have lost their jobs as a result of the coronavirus, adding to the 212,000 people in the Live Register. A further 46,000 employers have signed up to the newly expanded wage subsidy scheme, with over 281,200...

April 22, 2020
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22Apr

Kenya needs better social protection programmes during Covid-19

While scrolling through Twitter, it is likely that you will come across a post appealing for food aid. As Kenya recorded its 197th confirmed Covid-19 case in early April, many enterprises had reduced their operations, or closed down, causing massive losses in livelihoods. The economic impact has, in turn, increased the prevalence of food-insecure households. Although Kenya has set up a Covid-19 Emergency Fund, it does not currently support provision of food for the most vulnerable households. On Friday,...

April 22, 2020
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20Apr

Ireland. Concern growing as social welfare budget nears breaking point

Concern is growing across Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael over the capacity of the Department of Social Protection to continue to fund the cost of the coronavirus shutdown without an emergency estimate. The scale of the fiscal challenges are so steep one senior Government source warned: ‘The cost of dealing with coronavirus and its impact, especially on the Social Protection budget, may compel Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to escalate the process of government formation.’ Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are...

April 20, 2020
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17Apr

Income and Wealth Shocks and Expectations during the COVID-19 Pandemic

By Tobin Hanspal, Annika Weber, Johannes Wohlfart In early April 2020 we conducted a survey on a representative sample of more than 8,000 US households to study the effect of the coronavirus crisis on household income and retirement wealth, households' expectations about the recovery, and the impact of the shock on individuals' economic choices. Wealth shocks are large across the population, but more pronounced for middle-age households and those higher in the wealth and income distributions. This contrasts with...

April 17, 2020
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14Apr

World Bank to allocate 150 mln USD to Ukraine for social protection

The World Bank will provide Ukraine with an additional 150 million U.S. dollars for social protection needs during the COVID-19 epidemic, the press service of the Ukrainian Ministry of Social Policy said on its website Friday. Read also Africa’s demographic transition The statement said 50 million dollars will be used to support vulnerable groups during the outbreak and 100 million dollars are earmarked for improving social protection in general. Read also India: Pension schemes draw more members Ukraine joined the World...

April 14, 2020
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14Apr

Is quarantine like early retirement? These people think so

Shelter-in-place orders have urged most Americans to stay home, freeing hours of time otherwise spent commuting or working at an office. They’re also getting creative about how they use this time, including running around the neighborhood, learning a new language, taking long walks with their dogs and cooking more. Some Reddit users say if this is what early retirement is like, they’re ready. “I sleep in and wake up on my own every day. I watch some news/TV, take...

April 14, 2020
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13Apr

Egypt. COVID-19 crisis likely to propel social protection reforms: Mashaat

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis is likely to accelerate the structural reforms as regards the social protection and the irregular workers alongside activating the financial inclusion as per the policies of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), said International Cooperation Minister Rania el Mashaat on Monday. The minister was addressing a video conference session about the short and long-term repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic organized by the Middle East Institute (MEI), a leading non-profit think tank and cultural center...

April 13, 2020
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