This Won’t Ever Be Over

A common sentiment of the moment is: “When this is all over.”

When this is all over…

Let’s go to Disneyland.

Let’s catch a Clippers game.

Let’s get married.

But for half of all Americans, this won’t ever be over.

For one thing, 23% [1] of Americans are school-aged (<18). Those students have already lost a half-semester of their education. Distance learning efforts are getting them some of what they need, but a majority of these students are losing out on valuable moments of social learning that come through extracurricular activities and spending time with peer groups. 

It’s hard to say how big of an impact this lack of academic learning could have. Some students, already late in their high school careers, have been accepted to their chosen universities; meanwhile, one-fourth of the rural United States lacks access to broadband [2]. What is agreed, across the board, is that even missing three days of school negatively impacts academic performance [3] [4] [5]. Most students, to date, have missed over 40.

The long-term effects of prolonged quarantine on school-aged Americans remains unclear, but will at least result in poorer academic performance. Studies show that a one-point drop in high school grade point averages results in a 12-14% drop in future career earnings [6]. With a drop in attendance will come a decline in academic performance, and with that decline, lower wages.

Which raises the next concern. The majority of an employee’s career earnings are decided in their first decade on the marketplace. Per the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the average earnings growth of employees aged 35-55 is 0% (accounting for inflation) [7]; meanwhile, workers can expect a salary growth of 60% before they are 30 years old [8]. 

Currently, Americans younger than 35 make up about 50% of the workforce [9] while making up just 21% of the entire U.S. population [10]. The COVID-19 unemployment rate for May 2020 was 19% [11], while over 25% of Americans <35 are currently unemployed [12] due to the pandemic. This demonstrates that younger Americans have been disproportionately affected by the current crisis.

This culmination of data suggests two things. First, school-aged children in the United States are missing school, which will in turn cause them to suffer academically, eventually resulting in lower career earnings. In addition, those students will eventually go to college at a depressed rate, again resulting in lower career earnings [13]. 

Second, young adults in the workforce are unemployed at a rate not seen since the Great Depression. Historically, the majority of wage growth happens in a young adult’s first decade in the labor market; thus, many American workers will fail to earn some percentage of the wage growth they could usually expect. The data does not suggest that this loss of income will be made up later in their careers.

This isn’t to say that older Americans aren’t affected by COVID-19. Unemployment rates are up across the board. But Americans older than 35 have already been through school and have already achieved the majority of the wage growth expected of their careers. Simply put, once the unemployment rate returns to normal, older Americans will be out only the time in which they had no salary. Meanwhile, children will suffer academically, affecting the rate at which they go to college and how much they earn in their careers, and younger workers aged 19-34 will lose out on the majority of the wage growth they could expect out of their careers, dramatically affecting their lifetime earnings.

For these Americans, this won’t ever all be over. We will be living with COVID-19 our entire lives.