Majority of US Federal COVID-19 Funds Were Employment Centric

(21 October 2020) The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the US economy, as with many other economies globally. Immediately after the outbreak began, the US unemployment rate increased quickly to 15 percent in April 2020 and did not peak until May (17%). To respond to this and other economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, US federal authorities approved a variety of financial assistance programs for individuals and businesses. Below we provide quick access to the key figures summarizing funding levels for each program—spoiler alert wage protection and replacement programs represented a majority of funding—distribution among the US states, and snapshots of funding per state relative to COVID-19 case volume.   

• In net, the federal government allocated $1.7 trillion as of October 14, 2020, roughly 50 percent of which was directed toward employees, including paycheck protection program, unemployment compensation, and unemployment assistance. 
• State level data shows a clear relationship between federal assistance and COVID-19 case volume, which is unsurprising given the employment (i.e. economic) support focus of the majority of the funds. California received the highest amount of funding—just over $242 billion—followed by New York and Texas at $139 and $129 billion, respectively.
• States with the fewest relative number of COVID-19 cases per million received the same funding per capita, on average. The smallest amount of funding went to Vermont and Wyoming, which had the lowest numbers of coronavirus cases in the country as of October 20, 2020.