The Aftermath of the Pandemic Recession The Role of Economic Development Policy

The presentation and speech describe four economic challenges:

1. The current pandemic recession has exacerbated many economic inequalities: regional inequality, income inequality, inequalities between big and small businesses, and inequalities across different racial groups.
2. The current pandemic has accelerated the trend toward remote work.
3. The current pandemic has revealed deficiencies in our current economic capacity to provide health-care services, including healthcare-related manufacturing goods.
4. The current pandemic is eroding the fiscal capacity of state and local governments.

To conclude, the presentation and speech describe economic development initiatives to consider.

(The presentation is 11 slides, and the speech is 12 pages.)

The presentation presents the following possible initiatives for economic development policy to respond to the pandemic recession:

1. More targeting of distressed areas, to offset increased geographic disparities.
2. More linkage between economic development and workforce programs, to help disadvantaged workers.
3. Help small businesses rebound from the pandemic.
4. Help Black workers and business owners.
5. Broadband access for all regions and economic classes.
6. Diversify high-tech, including health-related high-tech, beyond the coastal metros.
7. Design business tax policies and incentives that will raise state revenue, while encouraging investment in export-based industries.

The speech states "Economic development policy alone cannot ensure a more robust and equitable recovery. But economic development policy can play an important supportive role in broadening the recovery from this recession to include more regions, more businesses, and more economic classes and racial groups."

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2020
• Author(s): Bartik, T.
• Funding Source: W.E. Upjohn Institute
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Wesley Peterson
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies