COVID-19, Welfare States, and Social Policies

Abstract

Abstract This chapter focuses on pandemic preparedness from a cross-national policy perspective. How are some societies able to weather the crisis (in terms of mitigating health inequalities) relative to others? For example, U.S. law does not guarantee even a single day of paid sick leave for workers, thereby increasing the risk of “sickness presenteeism” among low-wage workers. Childcare was unaffordable for the most vulnerable workers, even before they were closed down by the COVID crisis, forcing workers to rely on informal arrangements (e.g., grandparents looking after young children). In the United States, laid-off workers have been steered toward filing for unemployment benefits, forcing them to choose between losing their benefits versus risking exposure to infection when their employers called them back to work. This contrasts with other countries, such as Germany, which rely on a system of government payments to businesses to keep their employees on their payroll. This chapter also includes a summary of federal assistance programs, such as school lunch programs, SNAP, the impact of border closures (north and south) and the impact of those policies on their communities also are discussed.