![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2021\/05\/asfaw-abraham-Bates-College-703x900.jpg\")
They\u2019ve been a matter of life and death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Writing in Economics & Human Biology<\/em><\/a>, Asfaw measured the effects and tradeoffs of income-support programs worldwide during the pandemic, such as paycheck protection and expanded unemployment benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His conclusion: ISPs globally \u201cavoided 3.6 million COVID-19 cases and 166,690 deaths\u201d between Feb. 15 and May 15, 2020, the period of his study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asfaw’s paper, \u201cThe effect of income support programs on job search, workplace mobility, and COVID-19: International evidence,\u201d combines data from several sources, including the Oxford University COVID-19 Government response tracker<\/a>, Google community mobility reports<\/a>, and Google job search trends in 178 countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The study significantly underscores the need for policymakers to consider public health benefits such as disease prevention and mortality reduction \u201cwhen evaluating the total values of social insurance programs,\u201d writes Asfaw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asfaw\u2019s study is thought to be one of the first to provide evidence of social insurance programs\u2019 effect on job search effort, workplace mobility, and COVID-19 case and mortality growth rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Typically \u2014 absent a pandemic, that is \u2014 nations use ISPs to help with \u201cconsumption smoothing,\u201d a term that describes one\u2019s ability to conduct their financial life as usual, such as buying groceries and paying for housing and transportation, despite disruptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But during the pandemic, ISPs took on a life-and-death purpose. As countries instituted drastic measures to fight the pandemic, including stay-at-home orders, ISPs made it financially possible for people to achieve physical distancing, including staying away from the in-person workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn the presence of a contagious respiratory disease,\u201d writes Asfaw, the benefit of ISPs \u201ccan go beyond consumption smoothing\u201d by \u201creducing workplace contacts and containing the virus\u2019s spread in the community.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n (Asfaw does acknowledge that individuals could have used other \u201ccoping mechanisms,\u201d besides ISPs, such as \u201ccredit cards, savings, loans from friends and family, to smooth their consumption and practice social distancing, reducing physical contacts in workplaces and other areas.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asfaw notes that there is a tradeoff when it comes to ISPs. Critics have long argued that such programs hurt the economy by lowering unemployed workers\u2019 incentive to apply for jobs and return to the workforce. As governments loosened unemployment eligibility criteria and increased benefits in the early months of the pandemic, those concerns have been front-of-mind among policymakers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, Asfaw found that ISPs during the pandemic did lead to a \u201creduction in job-search effort levels\u201d of between 6.6 and 11.6 percentage points in economies throughout the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, ISPs, by allowing workers, whether employed or not, to stay away from the in-person workplace, reduced the growth rate of COVID-19 cases (between 21.8 to 47.7 percentage points) and reduced COVID-19 mortality growth rates (between 17.1 to 29.7 percentage points). <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2021\/05\/49996788022_a74b931f1e_o.jpeg\")
![\"Daily](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2021\/05\/33212889791_9e18841eb8_o.jpeg\")
Titled “Movement focus #3, Chelsea, New York City,” this photograph was taken in the Manhattan neighborhood on June 20, 2020, during the city’s phased reopening. (Photograph by Andreas Komodromos, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Fenn](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2021\/05\/49882634871_316bcef5a2_o.jpeg\")