The national unrest of the last week has added a layer of pain to what many Vermonters were already experiencing during the pandemic: economic hardship, inequitable access to public resources and health care, and the stress of being isolated from family and friends. Read more

Health comes first. But the next biggest risk Vermonters face from the coronavirus pandemic is loss of income. As leaders in Montpelier contemplate the best uses for $1.25 billion in federal aid from the Coronavirus Relief Fund, insuring that Vermont families continue to have money for food and shelter has to be at the top of the list.

Until last week, the weekly reports on new claims for unemployment benefits were about the only data we had on what the coronavirus was doing to the state’s economy. Now we’re starting to get more numbers.

If there’s anything that has become clear in this pandemic, it’s just how important schools are to Vermont families.

School staff are feeding kids, providing online instruction, helping connect kids to resources that they need—everything they always do and then some, but under much more challenging circumstances.

And with schools working to reach kids who don’t have broadband access and continuing to meet students’ special education needs, they need more funding, not less.

Vermont’s April revenue collections highlight the absurdity of federal rules restricting the use of the Coronavirus Relief Fund—the $150 billion that Congress appropriated in the CARES Act to help the states.

The state’s personal income tax receipts dropped by two-thirds last month. Instead of taking in $184 million, as forecast, the tax department received $63 million. But according to the latest guidance Vermont can’t use its federal relief funds to close that gap—to pay for the programs and services that would have been covered by the $121 million the state didn’t collect.

During the first month of the pandemic, Congress scrambled to pass multiple aid packages aimed at helping states and individuals prepare for and respond to the crisis. But whether that will be enough to meet Vermonters’ needs is anyone’s guess.

The packages approved in Washington include increased unemployment benefits, limited paid leave, funds to hospitals and other medical providers, and one-time direct payments to low- and moderate-income individuals, as well as additional program dollars for child care subsidies, education, community development, and other priorities. To date, Vermont’s small businesses have taken more than $1 billion in Small Business Administration loans that may be forgiven if they keep their employees on payroll for the two months following receipt of the loan.

It’s too early to have a clear picture of how Vermont should allocate the $1.25 billion it received last week from the federal Coronavirus Relief Fund. But a fully funded, fully functioning public education system has to be a top priority.

We’ve already heard demands that “schools need to share the economic pain” caused by the coronavirus crisis. At first blush, that sounds like a reasonable appeal to a sense of fairness. But it won’t be schools that pay the price if we start cutting education funding. It will be children, who already are going to miss about a third of this school year. Are we really going to ask third graders or high school sophomores to “share the pain” by giving up part of their education next year too? Are we prepared to tell them they need to do more with less education?

More than 72,000 of Vermonters worked in jobs that are now on the frontlines of the coronavirus crisis, providing goods and services that many of the rest of us need as we shelter in place.

Two out of three of these workers were women. Nearly one in three (30 percent) had a child living at home.

These are some of the findings of a new analysis released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, D.C., using data from 2014 to 2018. The frontline workers included in the study represent 22 percent of all Vermont workers 16 and older.

Let’s all take a deep breath. Before we jump to the conclusion that $600-a-week federal unemployment checks on top of state benefits are going to destroy the work ethic and wipe out the labor force, let’s remember why we’re doing this.

The intended consequence of federal pandemic unemployment benefits through July is that workers will stay home. Until there is a vaccine, isolation is the best defense against the coronavirus. And if people are going to be confined to their homes, they need to have enough money to feed themselves and their families, make rent or mortgage payments, and pay for essential goods and services.

We’re looking at this the wrong way if we’re trying to balance “unemployment compensation” in one hand and “to not be working” in the other.

The $2.2 trillion federal stimulus bill will keep the wolf from the door for millions of people who can’t work and businesses forced to close because of the coronavirus pandemic—at least for a while. Congress rightly recognized its first priority is to see that people with no money coming in have enough to live on.

Now we must do the same for those who are still working.

Life in the time of the COVID-19 has upended everyone’s daily routines. It’s a wonder anyone has remembered the 2020 Census form that recently arrived in the mail. But as of last weekend, just over 16 percent of Vermonters had completed the survey. Nationally, the response rate has been 19.2 percent.

April 1, just a week away, is Census Day. That’s the reference date for answering the Census questions about the people in each household, their ages, race, relationships, and about home ownership. This is the basic head count that is done every 10 years, and it’s critical in determining the distribution for federal funds, representation in Congress, and representation in the Vermont Legislature. Federal highway construction, Medicaid, food assistance (known here as 3SquaresVT), Head Start, and school meals are just a few of the federal programs affected by the Census count.