Katharine Abraham featured in The New York Times on Coronavirus Depression
Neil Irwin, a senior economics correspondent writing for The New York Times, where he writes for The Upshot, published an article on how U.S. could avoid the long-term economic depression Coronavirus outbreak may bring.
Irwin suggests the first and most important action is to support people who lose their jobs to prevent periods of prolonged mass unemployment which usually cause long-lasting damage to the economy. According to Faculty Associate Katharine Abraham, professor at UMD Department of Economics, "it will be particularly desirable to maintain workers’ connections with their employers, for instance, by work-sharing arrangements in which hours are cut but employees not laid off, with unemployment benefits filling the income gap." This way, firms will not have to spend much time hiring new people "when things start to pick up," she said.