Apparently, in the winter of 2022, there are STILL people living their lives afraid of catching Covid.
And it's not just a few fringe radical lefties with their Dr. Fauci candles lit, praying to the god of Science to rid the world of the disease.
No, it's enough people that the US economy is losing BILLIONS of dollars because they won't leave their houses.
From MarketWatch:
Knowing that COVID-19 has not gone away, some people are not yet prepared to let their guard down, according to a working paper distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Some 13% of U.S. workers said they will continue social distancing as the economy opens up and cases fall, and another 45% said they will do so in limited ways. Only 42% said they plan a "complete return" to the activities they participated in before the pandemic.
The study, titled "Long Social Distancing," estimated that unwillingness among workers to be in close proximity to others — which in many cases is prudent, especially for those who have underlying conditions or elderly relatives — reduced labor participation by 2.5 percentage points in the first half of 2022 compared with what economists would normally expect to see. That translates to $250 billion in potential annual output, representing a drop of nearly 1 percentage point.
Only 42% of people in this study plan to go back to normal?
$250 billion left on the table because some people don't want to go back to work?
Honestly, I have questions about these numbers.
How many of these not going into work and dropping out of the labor force are actually afraid of Covid, versus just being lazy freeloaders who don't want to go into the office?
You know the number of couch potatoes HAS to outweigh the number actually scared of Covid at this point.
The authors of the National Bureau of Economic Research report analyzed the results of WFH Research's monthly Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes, which was begun by a group of economists in 2020 in response to the dramatic impact of COVID-19 on working life. The survey polls nearly 27,500 U.S. residents between the ages of 20 and 64 who have recent experience working. The authors looked at results from February to July 2022 and focused on people who had earned at least $10,000 in 2021.
About one-fifth of the respondents who were not participating in the labor force during the week the survey was conducted said concern about catching COVID-19 or other infectious diseases was the primary or secondary reason they were not currently working or seeking work.
"It is more common among older persons, women, the less educated, those who earn less, and in occupations and industries that require many face-to-face encounters," the researchers wrote. "People who intend to continue social distancing have lower labor force participation — unconditionally, and conditional on demographics and other controls."
I refuse to believe that 20% of people who stopped working did so because they are STILL afraid to leave their homes due to Covid.
You're telling me there are THAT many neurotic, germophobic hypochondriacs out there?
Businesses have struggled to find workers to fill jobs over the last 12 months, especially in the service and labor sectors. Labor shortages have led to an increase in wages and contributed to 40-year-high inflation rates. And two groups of workers are yet to come back in earnest — those ages 20-24 and those over 65 — the study study[sic] concluded. Experts say that unless such workers return to the workforce, hiring will continue to be tough and labor shortages will persist.
