When: Thursday, April 9, 2020, 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. EDT
What: Over one-fifth of Americans are directly employed in retail and hospitality, including stores, bars and restaurants, tourism, and entertainment. That’s more than 32 million people working in an industry that’s currently being hammered by widespread closures and layoffs due to COVID-19. The reverberations are widespread, from kitchen tables, to local economies, to municipal budgets, as rents, wage, and sales taxes go uncollected.
On Thursday, April 9, the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program will host a webinar examining COVID-19’s impacts on the retail and hospitality industries and highlight creative interventions cities and states are deploying to help small businesses and workers, including unemployment insurance, sick leave policies, and grant and loan assistance programs. Brookings scholars Tracy Loh and Annelies Goger will be joined by the owner of a local fast casual restaurant who, in the face of closures, has leveraged his bulk purchasing power into a bodega delivery service, as well as the president and CEO of the Prince George’s County Economic Development Corporation, who is overseeing the county’s COVID-19 Business Relief Fund.
Viewers can submit questions for panelists by emailing events@brookings.edu or via Twitter at @BrookingsMetro.