coronavirus

Recent findings from a study titled The Death of Downtown? Pandemic Recovery Trajectories across 62 North American Cities, conducted by a group of six researchers at the University of California’s Berkeley campus's Institute of Governmental Studies found that U.S. and Canadian downtowns are recovering from COVID-19 related setbacks at much slower rates than the “rest of the city,” and many downtown areas are still seeing less visits than pre-pandemic levels.

A research team including members from MIT and the Federal Reserve Board assessed the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to determine if the initiative was able to keep businesses from closing and people from becoming unemployed. The authors present the highlight finding, which has been covered in multiple publications, as indicating that only about 23-34 percent of PPP funds went to workers who would have lost their jobs otherwise. This rate of effectiveness implies a cost of $170,000-$257,000 per job-year[1] of employment. The outcome seems surprising, given the program’s requirement that at least 60 percent of funds be spent on payroll. A dive into the results and policy implications bears lessons for future emergency program design.

As the Economic Development Administration (EDA) continues to award its $3 billion allotment of pandemic relief funding made available by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA), many states are taking aim at several specific areas of economic concern — while others are maintaining a broad perspective. Under the Statewide Planning, Research & Networks program (“planning grants”), EDA provides $1 million grants to states to use in forming coordinated state-wide plans for economic development as well as developing the data, tools, and capacity to evaluate and scale evidence-based economic development efforts. SSTI’s analysis of the funded projects’ brief descriptions shows that states were split between those focusing on broadly-scoped planning projects and those focusing on a few specific areas of interest.

A $7.17 billion Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) was established by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act to help ease the educational impact on students of school closures in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. While much instruction transitioned to an online environment, many students were inadequately equipped to properly participate. To address issues with access to technology, the program provides funding to schools and libraries across the nation to purchase connected devices and equipment needed for students to use off-campus. The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) latest commitment of $421 million brings the program’s total funding to more than $3 billion.

In an unexpected turn of events, some college students around the country have been logging into their accounts to check on account balances and finding them canceled. Many institutions of higher education across the country have been taking advantage of federal assistance provided through the CARES Act Higher Education Emergency Relief funds (HEERF) to cancel student debt. HEERF I, II and III represent three programs that Congress appropriated to higher education to help prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus, including emergency financial grants to students.

As vaccination rates increase across the country and infections fall, the role of science in combatting the COVID-19 virus is front and center. Last week, we brought you stories about SSTI members’ efforts to help small businesses. In today’s story, we share additional feedback from our members that worked to find ways to fight the virus and others who pivoted to help their students continue to learn in a challenging environment.

When the full impact of the COVID-19 virus was just beginning to be realized in spring of 2020, small businesses across the country were faced with nearly insurmountable challenges and emergency orders, shutting down operations in many instances and choking off funding sources. Many in the technology-based economic development (TBED) community stepped in and pivoted their own organizations and plans to help others. We reached out to our SSTI members to hear about how they responded. While we can’t include all of the many success stories, below we feature a sampling of some of the stories that SSTI members shared regarding how they responded to help guide small businesses through the pandemic. And check back next week when we will share more from members who responded about their science and education pivots that helped the country navigate the pandemic.

Last week not only marked the anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also the release of updated employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The monthly data shows that the pandemic had a very unusual effect on workers, experienced both as a uniquely-chaotic period of labor force participation, but also as an unprecedented immediate drop in employment. The graphic captures just how chaotic the last year has been. Compared against the trends of the past two decades, it is clear that the COVID-19 recession has, thus far, affected workers very differently than either the brief 2001 recession or the Great Recession.

The American Rescue Plan Act, a $1.9 trillion spending package to address the ongoing health and economic impacts of COVID-19, was signed into law today. The legislation includes several initiatives that could strengthen regional innovation economies. Most notable among these is the $10 billion State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI), $3 billion for the Economic Development Administration (EDA), and $350 billion for state and local government relief.

The U.S. House of Representatives is working through the coronavirus relief package in committee markups this week, and there are several provisions that could have a significant impact for regional innovation economies. The highest-profile of these is $10 billion for a new State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) program. Reauthorizing this program has been a top priority for SSTI's Innovation Advocacy Council, as SSBCI was one of the federal government’s only sources of funding for equity investments in the past two decades.