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On this episode of the The Federalist Radio Hour, Orphe Divounguy joined host Ben Domenech to discuss the economic effects of the government-mandated lockdowns. Divounguy is a chief economist at the Illinois Policy institute in Chicago and his work appears in countless publications.
Although the pandemic itself contributed to a decline in economic activity in the United States, the government-ordered lockdown exacerbated those affects. Through his work at the Institute, he discovered trends among jobs lost in recent months. He argued that because of governors deeming certain jobs essential and others non-essential, job losses were unequal among groups.
“Government workers were mostly shielded from the job losses. And as private sector workers lost their jobs, the worst to report is really that it was people who were already behind — blacks and hispanics, relative to whites — that had to suffer the most disproportionate job losses.”
Listen here:
