People need more than a check. They need a new economy. View this in your browser and share with your friends. <[link removed]>

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The CARES Act and Beyond

The coronavirus crisis has now eliminated over22 million jobs <[link removed]>—about the same amount created in the decade since the Great Recession. The CARES Act’s Paycheck Protection Program, meanwhile, isfalling behind <[link removed]>,running dry <[link removed]>, and failing to reach the hardest-hit workers and small businesses—problems one-off stimulus checks and unwieldy loanswon’t be able to solve <[link removed]>. In a New York Times op-ed,corporate bailout watchdog <[link removed]>(and Roosevelt’snew <[link removed]>managing director of corporate power) Bharat Ramamurti suggests the path forward: “The Congressional Oversight Commission, which I was appointed to by the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, last week, is the only body that can investigate the decisions made by the Treasury and the Fed without interference from President Trump, who has already tampered with the two other oversight bodies [that] the CARES Act created. The public’s best hope is for Congress to quickly appoint the other four commissioners and let us get to work on the behalf of taxpayers, tracking the more than $2 trillion in lending that is already in the pipeline.”Read more <[link removed]>, and listen to Ramamurti’s conversation with Vox’s Matthew Yglesias on thelatest episode of The Weeds <[link removed]>.
- Loans are not enough: “Both Republicans and Democrats are now recognizing that loans may be insufficient and have called for direct subsidies to small businesses. This public-health crisis can avoid becoming a full-scale economic crisis through smart government action to keep businesses whole,” Roosevelt Fellow Lenore Palladino writes forBarron’s <[link removed]>. As Roosevelt President & CEO Felicia Wongtells The Progressive <[link removed]>in an interview,Congress can do more <[link removed]>: “The federal government can absolutely afford to providecash backstops <[link removed]> . . . to those in need. We can mandate paid sick leave for all workers. We can extendunemployment insurance benefits <[link removed]>. We can expand health insurance coverage and put in motion public production of basic medicines. In fact, given the amount of wealth in this country that could be put to better public use, we can’t afford not to do these things.” For Boston Review, Wong explainswhy wealth taxation is central <[link removed]>to creating the new progressive economy we need.


- The crisis ahead: “COVID-19 and the economic collapse it has caused have laid bare how connected our problems are,” Roosevelt Director of Climate Policy Rhiana Gunn-Wright writes for the New York Times’s series on a post-pandemic economy. “Refusing to include measures related to climate and environmental justice in economic stimulus packages related to the coronavirus is not neutral when there is no guarantee of other opportunities to do so later. We need to design the stimulus not only to help the US economy recover but to also become more resilient to the climate crisis, the next multitrillion-dollar crisis headed our way.”Read on. <[link removed]>



Rethinking Financial Inclusion


An early lesson from the CARES Act’sstilted stimulus disbursement <[link removed]>: Digital access to payment systems should be a public good. In a new paper, Roosevelt Fellow Mehrsa Baradaran explains how historical policy choices created today’s exclusionary financial and credit services—and how we can design a more equal system with democracy and public policy. “Financial exclusion is a result of policy decisions that have centered bank credit as a principal means of access; financial redesign—not new technologies at the margins—can remedy the problem by changing the paradigm,” Baradaran writes. “Like moving from gold to silver, a change in the legal foundations of credit and financial policy can create a more just and equitable economy.”Read the full report <[link removed]>, and learn more about how postal banking can boost accessin a new blog post <[link removed]> from Roosevelt Senior Manager of Media Strategies Ariela Weinberger.


How to Rescue the Economy


“There is a whole lot we need to do to pull our country out of this public health and economic calamity. But if there is one shared understanding I hope we can emerge from this crisis with, it’s this: We are the economy,” Roosevelt Fellow and Groundwork Collaborative Executive Director Michael Lindenwrites for Buzzfeed <[link removed]>. “The economy is not the stock market, or the bottom lines of a handful of massive corporations. The economy is the nurses, grocery store workers, warehouse and construction workers, and so many other workers and families. And when they aren’t prospering, the economy isn’t strong.” For Crooked Media, Linden lists thefour keys to a successful coronavirus response for all <[link removed]>, and in a Washington Post op-ed, Suzanne Kahn—deputy director of the Great Democracy Initiative and a Roosevelt education expert—exploreswhat Congress can learn from the New Deal <[link removed]>.For the blog <[link removed]>, Roosevelt Network National Director Katie Kirchner argues that college students and young adults,many of whom were excluded from stimulus funding <[link removed]>, need targeted support in future relief efforts.

What We’re Reading
Stacey Abrams on Voting Rights, COVID-19, and Being Vice President <[link removed]> - Elle

Millennials Don’t Stand a Chance <[link removed]> - The Atlantic

Big Business Pledged Gentler Capitalism. It’s Not Happening in a Pandemic. <[link removed]> - New York Times

Why the Fed Was the Part of Government Most Ready for This Crisis <[link removed]> - New York Magazine

How We Stopped Villainizing the Social Safety Net <[link removed]> - CityLab

11 Concrete Steps the Government Can Take to Avert Economic Disaster <[link removed]> - Vox

We Need a Better Balance Between Globalization and Self-Reliance <[link removed]> - Joseph Stiglitz for Foreign Policy





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