Coronavirus calls for repairs to social safety net

And this time let’s make them permanent to avert the inevitable next disaster, says Ameya Pawar

Illinois is grappling with the coronavirus. Ameya Pawar says it’s time to get on with the necessary reforms and make them permanent to help avert the inevitable next crisis. (Shutterstock)

By Ted Cox

The coronavirus crisis threatens to widen holes in the social safety net, and those gaps should be filled and made permanent to avert the inevitable next disaster, according to a co-founder of One Illinois.

What the nation is discovering is that it’s only as safe as its most vulnerable citizens in dealing with the outbreak of COVID-19. That calls for an expansion of health care and health insurance, but also providing it at a reasonable cost, says Ameya Pawar, a former Chicago alderman who is now a fellow at Open Society Foundations. He is also co-founder of One Illinois.

“People are likely to make decisions about whether they take care of themselves or put food on the table, whether they buy diapers or take care of themselves,” Pawar said Tuesday. “These are the kinds of really tragic decisions we are forcing people to make. And all of these decisions people are making are predictable.”

Pawar and his wife, Charna Epstein, both have backgrounds in emergency management, and they wrote a textbook on the topic, “Emergency Management and Social Intelligence: A Comprehensive All-Hazards Approach,” along with Scott Simon.

“We need to follow the guidance of emergency management and public-health professionals,” Pawar said. But it will also take a comprehensive approach because spread of the virus threatens to have wide-ranging impacts on not only the nation’s health but its economy.

“All kinds of issues are going to spiral from that,” he added.

Pawar pointed to how three major Chicago conventions have already canceled, and how that affects not only convention workers and contractors directly, but also ancillary industries such as hotels and restaurants in hospitality. These new “recessionary pressures” threaten to strike at weak points in the economy, such as the fact that 1-in-3 U.S. workers lives paycheck to paycheck — even those making $100,000 — while 60 percent of Americans do not have $1,000 in the bank for an emergency, and two-thirds of those, 40 percent of the populace, don’t have $400 in the bank.

Although an increasing number of people are uninsured thanks to President Trump’s persistent attacks on the Affordable Care Act — an estimated 28 million — many more are underinsured and can easily be overextended with the average health-insurance deductible above $1,500 and the average emergency-room copay between $200 and $300.

“The people who are most vulnerable because of economics and policy choices we’ve made over the long term pre-disaster are the people who are going to suffer the most during and after,” Pawar said.

“The people who are most vulnerable because of economics and policy choices we’ve made over the long term pre-disaster are the people who are going to suffer the most during and after.”

Ameya Pawar (One Illinois/Ted Cox)

Pawar dismissed talk of tax cuts or cuts to the payroll tax as a top-down approach. “That does nothing for people if you’re not going to work,” he said. Instead, he called for the government to pass paid sick and family-leave policies so people can manage the routine crisis events, and add cash to the safety net to ensure a major event doesn't push people into financial ruin. Pawar suggested a Universal Basic Income program like what was proposed on the campaign trail by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Not coincidentally, Pawar also proposed a UBI pilot program while a Chicago alderman.

Just as important, he added, is that those sorts of programs need to be made permanent to help avert the inevitable next disaster, including the slow-motion calamity of climate change. “We are only as resilient as our response to the last emergency,” he said.

“We throw our hands up every time there’s a disaster or some sort of pandemic event,” Pawar added. “The problem is, when these events come to an end, they go back to the neoliberal ways and policies that favor the rich and big corporations, and you have this deep-seated vulnerability under the surface.

“You’re going to see all this surface in this event.”

Illinois announced eight new COVID-19 cases Tuesday, including the first two outside Chicago and Cook County: a Kane County woman in her 60s and a McHenry County teen. That brings the total number of Illinois confirmed infections to 19.

“As we anticipated, the number of cases in Illinois is increasing and now includes the first cases outside of Chicago and Cook County," said Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health.  "The state of Illinois continues to take action to reduce spread of COVID-19 in Illinois, and we again want to encourage people to start thinking and preparing now in the event they are not able to go to work, if schools are closed, if public transportation is not available, and how else their lives will be disrupted by this outbreak.”

Pawar urged legislators to “start building an economy that’s inclusive.” He cited Vox Media in pointing out that employees in the service industry, like food workers or personal care assistants, are much less likely than their peers in more lucrative fields to have paid time off if they get sick. But they also make less money in general, meaning a lost day of work hurts their families’ budgets more. That gives them a strong motivation to go into work — even if they’re not feeling well. What’s more, just 63 percent of people working in service occupations have paid sick leave, versus more than 90 percent of people in management positions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For people working part-time, just 43 percent can get sick leave from their employer.

“If Congress wants to do something today, pass an emergency guaranteed-income program,” he said. “Put emergency-wage replacement or guaranteed income in place today. And then make them permanent for the future in addition to universal health care.”