Tag: COVID-19

Household Hardship and Stimulus Payments during the Pandemic: Differences Across Ethnic Minorities in the United States

This study examines the impact of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Economic Impact Payments (EIP) on alleviating household hardship, primarily food insufficiency and expense difficulty, among ethnic groups in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey (HPS) from 2020-2022, the study investigates who received the payments and how they used them. The study employs quasi-difference-in-difference models to address the issue of non-repetitive samples in the HPS dataset. The findings suggest that Black, Hispanic, and Other Races individuals reported consistently higher probabilities of food insufficiency and expense difficulty compared to Whites and Asians. The study further reveals that individuals across all ethnic groups reported less food insufficiency or expense difficulty after the distribution of the ARPA EIP in March 2021. In addition, individuals of all ethnic minority groups who used EIP for saving had a larger decrease in the probability of food insufficiency compared with the corresponding change for Whites. The study highlights the importance of targeted stimulus policies to address distinct problems faced by different ethnic minority groups.

Authors: Zheng Tian, Claudia Schmidt, Stephan J. Goetz

Publication: Presented at 2023 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Meeting Date Published: July 23, 2023

Tags: COVID-19

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The Impact of COVID-19 on Racial Inequality in Diet Quality

Although a large and growing literature has investigated the diet and nutrition disparities (see Kozlova, 2016; Allcott et al., 2019 for earlier work), little research has analyzed the impact of COVID-19 on racial/ethnic disparities in diet quality. We complement the existing literature by providing causal estimates of how COVID-19 impacted the racial gaps in diet quality and by examining the causes of racial gaps.

Authors: Yuxuan Pan, Linlin Fan, Stephan J. Goetz, Alexander Stevens

Publication: Presented at 2023 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Meeting Date Published: July 23, 2023

Tags: COVID-19

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Investing in Rural Recovery: Comprehensive Summary of National Rural Development Stakeholder Listening Sessions

This report summarizes results from the an initiative carried out by the Regional Rural Development Centers in 2021 and 2022 to identify investments needed to fill the gaps between rural communities’ assets and opportunities. These facilitated dialogues included four sessions conducted at the regional level focusing on issues of regional importance, and four national sessions on topics of widespread importance.

Authors: Jason Entsminger, John Green, Rachel Welborn, Renee Wiatt, Z. Bednarikova, Rianna Gayle, and Yuxuan Pan

Publication: Published by the Regional Rural Development Centers Date Published: February 27, 2023

Tags: COVID-19

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The U.S. Recreation Economy: Data, COVID-19, and Implications for Extension

The breadth, depth, and speed of the economic collapse associated with the COVID-19 pandemic was unprecedented in economic history. No sector was hit harder than Leisure and Hospitality, which accounts for the economic core of tourism and recreation-based activity. Only recently has employment in this sector begun to show signs of recovery toward pre-pandemic levels. Here we document the importance of the Leisure and Hospitality sector to the economy and identify impacts from the pandemic and recovery, at both state and local (county) levels. Selected implications for Extension Services programming by Land- and Sea-Grant institutions are highlighted.

Authors: Stephan J. Goetz, Luyi Han, Daniel Eades, Jason Entsminger, Doug Arbogast

Publication: 2021 NET Conference Proceedings Date Published: October 4, 2022

Tags: COVID-19

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Impacts of COVID-19 on Northeast Tourism and Recreation Economies

NERCRD COVID-19 Data Brief 22-02: This data brief characterizes tourism-related economic changes in the Northeast during the COVID-19 pandemic. Comparisons between rural and metro counties are highlighted, showing that different tourism and recreation economies experienced the pandemic’s effects differently too.

Download the data brief:

Data Supplement

Download detailed Northeast state-level data here.

Authors: Jason Entsminger, Luyi Han, and Stephan J. Goetz

Publication: NERCRD COVID-19 Issues Brief Series Date Published: July 27, 2022

Tags: COVID-19, COVID-19 Data Brief

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Impacts of COVID-19 on Northeast Economic Activity

NERCRD COVID-19 Data Brief 22-01: This brief is the first in a series to summarize the economic impacts of COVID-19 on Northeastern communities. In subsequent briefs, the series will highlight impacts in key industries and sectors.

Data Supplement

Download an excel spreadsheet providing GDP data at the regional and state level for the Northeast US, to accompany NERCRD Data Brief 22-01, “Impacts of COVID-19 on Northeast Economic Activity.”

Authors: Jason Entsminger, Luyi Han, and Stephan J. Goetz

Publication: NERCRD COVID-19 Issues Brief Series Date Published: July 27, 2022

Tags: COVID-19, COVID-19 Data Brief

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An early assessment of COVID-19’s impact on tourism in U.S. counties

We use county-level data to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the tourism and hospitality sector, which was by far the most impacted of all sectors, focusing on employment and wage changes. Results support our hypothesis that rural counties experienced fewer negative impacts or even benefited from the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of job growth. We present maps showing the pandemic’s effects on leisure and hospitality (L&H) employment across the nation, identifying the communities both hardest hit and least impacted. A linear regression model is developed to explore independent factors that influenced the pandemic’s local impact. Results are robust across different measures of the key variable (rurality), including rural-urban continuum codes, distance from metropolitan areas, and population density. We also consider the impacts of social capital, income, and local economic diversification, among other factors. Our results suggest that remote, less-populated counties were more likely to experience stable employment in the L&H sector relative to pre-pandemic levels, and in some cases even experienced employment growth.

Authors: Luyi Han, Stephan J. Goetz, Daniel Eades, Jason Entsminger, Doug Arbogast

Publication: Tourism Economics Date Published: June 16, 2022

Tags: COVID-19

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Food Insufficiency and Twitter Emotions During a Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic initially caused worldwide concerns about food insecurity. Tweets analyzed in real-time may help food assistance providers target food supplies to where they are most urgently needed. In this exploratory study, we use natural language processing to extract sentiments and emotions expressed in food security-related tweets early in the pandemic in U.S. states. The emotion joy dominated in these tweets nationally, but only anger, disgust, and fear were also statistically correlated with contemporaneous food insufficiency rates reported in the Household Pulse Survey; more nuanced and statistically stronger correlations are detected within states, including a negative correlation with joy.

Authors: Stephan J. Goetz, Connor Heaton, Muhammad Imran, Yuxuan Pan, Zheng Tian, Claudia Schmidt, Umair Qazi, Ferda Ofli, and Prasenjit Mitra

Publication: Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy Date Published: April 3, 2022

Tags: COVID-19

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The Role of Community Food Services in Reducing U.S. Food Insufficiency in the COVID-19 Pandemic

We use state-level Census Household Pulse Survey data to examine the role of community food
services such as food banks and pantries in reducing food insufficiency during the COVID-19
pandemic in the United States. Food insufficiency increased for all income classes during the
pandemic, and especially for the lower and middle classes. We adopt a fixed effects filtered
estimator to estimate the coefficients on time-invariant regressors in a fixed effects panel model.
Estimation results suggest community food services contribute to mitigating food insufficiency,
especially for the middle class and in the early months of the pandemic.

Authors: Zheng Tian, Claudia Schmidt, Stephan J Goetz

Publication: Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics Date Published: October 1, 2021

Tags: COVID-19

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The Conversation: More Americans couldn’t get enough to eat in 2020 – a change that hit the middle class hardest

Americans in households with annual incomes from $50,000 to $75,000 experienced the sharpest increase in food insufficiency when the COVID-19 pandemic began – meaning that many people in the middle class didn’t have enough to eat at some point within the previous seven days, according to our peer-reviewed study that will soon be published in the Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

Authors: Zheng Tian, Stephan J. Goetz

Publication: The Conversation Date Published: September 23, 2021

Tags: COVID-19

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