TY - JOUR
T1 - Financial relief policy and social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic
AU - Hsiao, Cody Yu Ling
AU - Ko, Stanley Iat Meng
AU - Zhou, Nan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Hsiao et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2022/6
Y1 - 2022/6
N2 - In this paper, we investigate the effect of stimulus payments during the COVID-19 pandemic on the social distancing practices of their recipients. While the directed cash payments stipulated by the 2020 CARES Act were intended to mitigate the economic impact of closures imposed in response to the outbreak, we find that this relief may also have inadvertently contributed to the spread of the virus due to increased social activity. We find that, as the payments were sent out on a staggered weekly schedule, there was a corresponding spike in weekend traffic as indicated by a number of mobility metrics that measure social distancing, over and above the usual uptick expected from weekend shopping following receipt of the stimulus payments on Fridays. This preliminary study gives some indication that the economic benefits of the stimulus package may in fact be outweighed by the detrimental effects of looser social distancing practices prolonging the outbreak.
AB - In this paper, we investigate the effect of stimulus payments during the COVID-19 pandemic on the social distancing practices of their recipients. While the directed cash payments stipulated by the 2020 CARES Act were intended to mitigate the economic impact of closures imposed in response to the outbreak, we find that this relief may also have inadvertently contributed to the spread of the virus due to increased social activity. We find that, as the payments were sent out on a staggered weekly schedule, there was a corresponding spike in weekend traffic as indicated by a number of mobility metrics that measure social distancing, over and above the usual uptick expected from weekend shopping following receipt of the stimulus payments on Fridays. This preliminary study gives some indication that the economic benefits of the stimulus package may in fact be outweighed by the detrimental effects of looser social distancing practices prolonging the outbreak.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85201201685&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pgph.0000663
DO - 10.1371/journal.pgph.0000663
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85201201685
SN - 2767-3375
VL - 2
JO - PLOS Global Public Health
JF - PLOS Global Public Health
IS - 6 June
M1 - e0000663
ER -
