Author: TheConversation

By Jay L. Zagorsky, Senior Lecturer, Questrom School of Business, Boston University The U.S. unemployment rate climbed from a half-century low of 3.5% to 4.4% in March – and is expected to go a lot higher. But the rate, as some predict, surpass the 25% joblessness the U.S. experienced at the peak of the Great Depression. As a macroeconomist who has tracked the labor force for decades, I’ve been wondering about this myself. There are actually two figures the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses to estimate employment levels in the United States. One is the unemployment rate, which comes...

By Peter C. Mancall, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences Policymakers are beginning to decide how to reopen the American economy. Until now, they have largely prioritized human health: Restrictions in all but a handful of states remain in effect, and trillions have been committed to help shuttered businesses and those who have been furloughed or laid off. The right time to start opening up sectors of the economy has been up for debate. But history shows that in the wake of calamities, human life often...

By Shannon Reid, Associate Professor, University of North Carolina – Charlotte; Matthew Valasik, Associate Professor of Sociology, Louisiana State University A series of protests, primarily in state capitals, have demanded the end of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Among the protesters were people who express concern about their jobs or the economy as a whole. But there are also far-right conspiracy theorists, white supremacists like Proud Boys and citizens’ militia members at the protests. The exact number of each group that attends these protests is unknown, since police have not traditionally monitored these groups, but signs and symbols of far right...

By Laura DeNardis, Professor of Communication Studies, American University School of Communication; and Jennifer Daskal, Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Technology, Law & Security Program, American University As more and more U.S. schools and businesses shutter their doors, the rapidly evolving coronavirus pandemic is helping to expose society’s dependence – good and bad – on the digital world. Entire swaths of society, including classes we teach at American University, have moved online until the coast is clear. As vast segments of society are temporarily forced into isolation to achieve social distancing, the internet is their window into the...

By Adrian Brettle, Lecturer in History, Arizona State University In March 1861, as Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as president, the United States faced its greatest crisis: its sudden and unexpected dissolution. Seven of the then 31 states had already voted to secede from the Union. What he did in the following months and years made such a massive difference in history that David M. Potter, an eminent historian of the South, concluded years ago that if Lincoln and the Confederate president Jefferson Davis had somehow swapped jobs, the Confederacy would have secured its independence. The Union’s military victory in...