Will the American Rescue Plan address inequality? Funding from the relief package offers a critical opportunity to improve the quality of life in many under-resourced and underrepresented communities. To maximize these federal dollars, state and local officials must reassess their own decision rules, Kenneth Wong says.
Expanding access to caregiving. Even before the pandemic, too many Americans had difficulties finding or affording care for children and disabled or older relatives. In an opinion piece for the New York Times, Molly Kinder and Martha Ross argue that investments in the care economy are long overdue and critical for the nation's recovery.
The rush to rollout vaccine passports. "Rather than focusing on technical methods for verifying vaccination status, governments should be working to establish clear guidance on how vaccine status information can and can't be used in the first place," Sean McDonald writes.
The uneven global recovery. The United States and China are shaping up to be the main drivers of global growth in 2021, but many other economies will likely struggle, according to analysis from Eswar Prasad.
How the pandemic helped some middle-class families. For some middle-class Americans, the COVID-19 pandemic slightly alleviated the day-to-day pressures that bogged them down in normal times. But this sense of relief was often coupled with a new deep-seated feeling of guilt, Hannah Van Drie and Morgan Welch find.
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