The lockdown measures imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic has affected countries across the world with decline in revenues, high unemployment rates and economic uncertainty. Governments are releasing stimulus packages to combat the impact but this may lead to higher taxes and debt, which will further burden people after the crisis.
Prof. Steve Hanke
Prof. Steve Hanke, Applied Economist at Johns Hopkins University, tweeted an article on the stimulus packages announced by the government and its consequences. He noted that the US government has already created $1.48tn in deficit in 2020 and is still planning to announce more stimulus packages.
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Hanke noted that future taxpayers will have to bear the hefty costs of the stimulus packages being announced by the government.
The #US govt has racked up a $1.48t deficit in the first 7 months of fiscal 2020. Yet, #Congress continues to draft more big govt spending plans as if money grows on trees. Future taxpayers will bear these hefty costs, and they will be shocked by the bill.https://t.co/Zpg1tmynN5
— Prof. Steve Hanke (@steve_hanke) May 11, 2020
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By GlobalDataIsaah Mhlanga
Isaah Mhlanga, chief economist at Alexander Forbes, tweeted on how debt financing due to Covid-19 will lead to increase in taxes in the future. He shared an article on how Saudi Arabia has tripled VAT from 5% to 15% to support the economy and suspended cost of living allowance.
The measures were implemented as the country had a $9bn (£7.2bn) budget deficit in the first quarter of 2020 in addition to fall in oil revenues by 22%.
Debt financing for COVID-19 means taxes will go up in future. Saudi Arabia has tripled VAT. https://t.co/o3hKvF25QD
— Isaah Mhlanga (@IsaahMhlanga) May 11, 2020
Tim Harcourt
Tim Harcourt, an economist and author, shared an article how working from home can mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the International Labour Organization, only 7.9% of the global workforce worked from home before the pandemic.
After the pandemic, the number of workers who are working from home has increased dramatically. In Argentina, for example, 93% of the workforce adopted teleworking. The article adds that workers in advanced economies are more capable of working from home rather than developing nations where the job profile did not allow work from home.
Who can work from home? Around 1 in 6 workers at the global level & just over 1 in 4 in advanced countries, @ilo analysis using a Delphi survey of labour market experts & weighing estimates by countries’ occupational shares, @voxeu https://t.co/RJyDpabI4z
— Romesh Vaitilingam (@econromesh) May 11, 2020
Gregory Daco
Gregory Daco, Chief US Economist at Oxford Economics, tweeted a chart on temporary jobs. He noted that those temporary jobs, which have been lost due to the coronavirus pandemic, are likely to turn be permanently lost as due to the recession caused by the pandemic.
https://twitter.com/GregDaco/status/1259817237021671424
