Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic-Related Policies on Young Adult Hardship

• In Event: State-Level Policymaking and Hardship among Families with Children

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic led to widespread disruptions in employment and income across the United States (US)—especially for vulnerable groups such as young adults and Black and Latine populations. Young adults remain a particularly vulnerable group who have lower income and wealth levels relative to older adults, often lack job tenure, are concentrated in part-time and low-wage jobs without benefits, and are more likely to face unemployment during recessions. Many Black and Latine young adults are unable to rely on their families for financial assistance when experiencing economic distress because their families also often lack financial resources. The COVID-19 pandemic and recession significantly devastated the economic wellbeing of young adults. Not only did they experience the largest employment losses during the pandemic (Abel & Deitz, 2021; Montenovo et al., 2020), but unlike typical recessions, their educational opportunities were also negatively impacted (Leukhina & Werner, 2021).

In response to the pandemic, the US government enacted several economic relief policies aimed at preventing hardship and severe poverty, and mitigating adverse health impacts. For example, they increased SNAP and UI generosity and accessibility and distributed Economic Impact Payments. Though these relief policies were mostly enacted federally, states also introduced policies bolstering or curtailing federal efforts and were key actors in distributing federal assistance, delivering them at varied degrees and timelines. This robust government policy response may have buffered families against the worst experiences of hardship. Yet no research to date has examined how these policies impacted the hardship experiences of the general population or vulnerable groups.

We fill the gap in the literature by assessing whether the Covid-19 relief policies individually and/or in combination reduced hardships outcomes of young adults—particularly Black and Latine young adults. To identify policy effects, we implement a natural experiment leveraging exogenous state and month/year variation in policy implementation to compare outcomes for individuals who had access to policy expansions to outcomes for otherwise similar individuals who did not have access to the policies. We first merge data from wave seven of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Survey (FFCWS)—a nationally-representative birth cohort of children followed since the late 1990s—to a unique comprehensive policy database that includes data indicating the state, year, and months that each COVID-19 related policy was in effect, their eligibility criteria, and their specific parameters in each time. Next, using a simulated instrument approach and data from the Current Population Survey we estimate the amount of income families of a given size, structure, gender and age composition and income level would have received from the COVID-19-related policies—which we expect to vary by state and time—and allocate these amounts to families in the FFCWS based on their characteristics.

Initial results show that 48% of young adults experienced some type of hardship, 20% experienced food hardships, while 16% and 14% experienced utility and housing hardships respectively. The results from this study will provide crucial evidence to inform future federal and state policies aimed at addressing the hardship effects of large-scale economic downturns.  

Authors

• Christal Hamilton, University of Connecticut
  Presenting Author

• Elizabeth Oltmans Ananat, Barnard College
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Tia M Dickerson, Columbia University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Jane Waldfogel, Columbia University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Christopher Wimer, Columbia University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author