Federalism Complicates the Response to the COVID-19 Health and Economic Crisis: What Can Be Done?

Abstract

Federalism has complicated the U.S. response to the novel coronavirus. States’ actions to address the pandemic have varied widely, and federal and state officials have provided conflicting messages. This fragmented approach surely cost time and lives. Federalism will shape the long-term health and economic impacts of COVID-19, including plans for the future, for at least two reasons: First, federalism exacerbates inequities, as some states have a history of under-investing in social programs, especially in certain communities. Second, many of the states with the deepest needs are poorly equipped to respond to emergencies due to low taxes and distrust of government, leading to inadequate infrastructure. These dynamics are not new, but they have been laid bare by this crisis. What can policymakers do to address the inequities in health and economic outcomes that federalism intensifies? The first section of this paper offers a case study, using the Mississippi Delta to illustrate the role of federalism in perpetuating the connection between place, health, and economics. The second section examines challenges that safety net programs will face moving beyond the acute phase of COVID-19. Our final section explores near-, middle-, and long-term policy options to mitigate federalism’s harmful side effects.

Children with disabilities in the United States and the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Further, it is imperative to understand the intersectional forces (the forms of inequality that often operate together and exacerbate each other) that are at play [1,58]. The pandemic has worsened structural inequalities which have been hitting certain families, especially those of color who are also more likely to be poor, more so than others [59]. As noted by the United Nations Sustainable Development Group, the harmful effects and long-term impacts of the pandemic will not be distributed equally [60].…”

Conflict in decision making and variation in public administration outcomes in Italy during the COVID‐19 crisis

“…Indeed, multilevel arrangements can complicate the design of response to a pandemic due to fragmentation and disjointed action (cf. Huberfeld et al, 2020). We also show how policy outcome variation can result in conflict between the actors involved in policy action and/ or consumption.…”

Patterns of Democracy Matter in the COVID-19 Crisis

“…The relation between political institutions and COVID-19 policies is far from being direct and simple, though. The list of countries that were hit particularly hard by the virus includes federal countries, such as the US, Belgium and Brazil, as well as more centralized countries such as the UK, Sweden and Chile (Colfer, 2020;Huberfeld et al, 2020;Petridou, 2020;Van Overbeke, 2020). Neither the level of democratization nor the general pattern of the distribution of power directly explains variances in the outcomes.…”

“…2 This comparison focuses not only on the impact of past experiences and of the countries' preparedness for the crisis (Capano, Howlett, Jarvis, Ramesh, & Goyal, 2020), it also looks at the effects of political institutions and the role of actors in the political game of the policy process, as France and Germany represent opposite types of democracy. First case-oriented comparisons of crisis management highlight the relevance of federalism and other elements of power-sharing for COVID-19 policies (Béland, Marchildon, Medrano, & Rocco, 2021;Huberfeld, Gordon, & Jones, 2020;Rocco, Béland, & Waddan, 2020). Accordingly, the following section discusses theoretical expectations regarding federalism, veto players and other institutional and political differences.…”