Mike Konczal of the Roosevelt Institute, a New York-based think tank, recently released a short policy memo proposing a five-pronged federal response to the economic fallout from the coronavirus. Interesting read: A Forward-Thinking Policy Response to the Coronavirus Recession 

I worry that Congress will enact blanket checks (e.g. $1200 or $2000/person), only to be followed by partisan opposition to bolstering the social safety net, e.g., expanding unemployment insurance (UI), extended benefits (EB), or emergency unemployment compensation (EUC) benefits. Partisan fights over short-term EB/EUC extensions ate up months of the Senate’s legislative calendar in 2009-10, when they should have been a bipartisan no-brainer… and extended for years at a time, not a month or two here and there.

Relatedly, here’s a great primer to the UI/EB/EUC system deployed during the Great Recession via economist Chad Stone at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a DC-based think tank.