Over the past year, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged on and the United States looked for ways to reopen the economy while maintaining public health and safety, Economic Studies scholars drew on their expertise to provide sound advice to policymakers. Economic Studies research helped federal and state leaders examine the continuing impact of the pandemic on the labor market and disparities in socio-economic outcomes, and how social insurance and emergency programs were aiding the economic recovery. Economic Studies scholars also continued their vital work on climate policy, the health care system, social inequality, monetary and fiscal policy—including retirement and taxes—and financial stability.

The TRACE-STL project provided critical guidance for state and local policymakers on how to effectively contain the local spread of COVID-19 in the face of continuing uncertainty about virus variants and vaccine uptake. Building on previous work at the national level and working closely with the St. Louis Department of Health, scholars in the Center on Social Dynamics and Policy (CSDP) developed a highly realistic simulation framework to assist the department in developing robust containment policies and practices to minimize cases of COVID-19 among the metro area’s three million residents. This work demonstrates the value of using an agent-based computational modeling approach to assist policymakers in developing highly customized policies, while managing the substantial uncertainty that remains part of managing both the COVID-19 pandemic and pandemics to come.

The results of the work were incorporated into practice on the ground and featured in a public outreach campaign by the health department. Building on the successful collaboration with St. Louis, Senior Fellow and CSDP Director Ross Hammond also presented the approach to the San Francisco Department of Health, the Utah Department of Health, a UK cabinet office, and advisors to the French government, among others. Additionally, he gave an invited briefing on the TRACE model to the Bipartisan Working Group caucus of the U.S. Congress, focusing on contact tracing and testing capacity related to COVID-19. CSDP scholars are continuing this work with particular emphasis on the endgame for the current pandemic and on better preparedness for rapid response to future pandemics, which pose an increasing threat.

The COVID-19 pandemic increased food insecurity in the United States, particularly among families with children. The Hamilton Project played a critical role in ensuring policymakers focused on this issue and provided guidance and technical assistance regarding the federal response. Hamilton Project Fellow Lauren Bauer has led these efforts by providing timely analysis and expertise, including tracking food insecurity in the U.S. and evaluating the effects of nutrition assistance programs. Outreach efforts to disseminate this work included publications; stakeholder engagement; several briefings for policymakers and reporters with partners including Share our Strength/No Kid Hungry and the Urban Institute; testimony on the future of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) before the U.S. House of Representatives Agriculture Subcommittee on Nutrition, Oversight, and Department Operations; and dozens of interviews with reporters that generated extensive coverage in leading outlets. The Hamilton Project’s work influenced the federal response on nutrition assistance including the collection of national food insecurity data, the authorization and extension of Pandemic EBT, the maximum benefit increase to SNAP, the suspension of SNAP work requirements, the dissolution of the prior administration’s rulemaking, and the current administration’s executive actions.

High health care costs are a major concern for many U.S. families. One source of these costs was surprise out-of-network billing, where consumers received very large bills for out-of-network care, even though they did not intentionally select an out-of-network health care provider. The USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative on Health Policy began working to bring awareness to this issue in 2016, starting with an initial white paper outlining the problem and its ramifications.

The Initiative’s scholars continued this work over the next four years. Through their sophisticated analysis, the Schaeffer Initiative created an evidence-based playbook to help federal and state policymakers tackle surprise billing—educating them on its causes, showing that the practice was driving up premiums, and warning of the dangers of basing arbitration decisions on provider charges, as New York and New Jersey had done in their attempts at reform. The team also analyzed each Congressional proposal on the topic and made suggestions to improve them, leading to eleven Hill briefings and Congressional testimony; they also regularly provided technical assistance to policymakers. The No Surprises Act, enacted in late 2020, steers clear of the inflationary solutions their work warned against and incorporates many provisions to improve the law identified by their analysis.