vox--2020-10-28--Exclusive: Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz on how to fix the economy during and after the pandemic

Joseph Stiglitz knows the real risk in the middle of a historic pandemic and economic crisis is the United States doing too little , not too much .
America doesn ’ t need to wait and see what happens before deciding whether to respond — the country went through a recession a decade ago .
“ We ’ ve seen this movie before , we didn ’ t have to see it again , ” the Nobel Prize-winning economist said in an exclusive interview with Vox .
There ’ s no question that an incredible amount of damage has already @ @ @ @ @ @ @ un-bankrupt a business that ’ s already gone under — but it ’ s still not too late to act .
If the federal government does more now , it can prevent the hole the country is in from growing deeper .
Otherwise , every day that goes by with inaction , the devastation — which has affected already disadvantaged people much more acutely than it has those at the top — will continue to mount .
Stiglitz put it plainly : “ This virus is not an equal opportunity virus , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ equal opportunity impact.
” The Columbia University economist and Nobel laureate has published a new paper , shared exclusively with Vox , outlining the risks currently facing the economy amid the Covid-19 pandemic and laying out a potential path back toward an economy that is prosperous and fair .
In it , Stiglitz warns of the risks of vicious cycles and downward spirals that generally accompany economic downturns and explores how this time is different : What ’ s happening in the economy right now is driven by a pandemic , and addressing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ order of business .
The longer the country fails to do that , an economic problem that was initially thought to be short-term liquidity turns into one of long-term solvency for businesses and households .
A temporary eviction moratorium only goes so far if , when it ’ s lifted , people are thousands of dollars in debt .
“ There is at least a significant risk of real stress even if the economy recovers in 2021 , just from the accumulated debt , ” Stiglitz said .
Stiglitz , who has long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expanded role in markets , was talking about issues such as wealth concentration , corporate power , and the risks of unfettered capitalism before it was cool .
His viewpoint is one the pandemic and resulting economic fallout have made only more relevant as people come to recognize the failures of the country ’ s health , economic , and political systems .
I spoke with Stiglitz recently about his new paper and his broader take on what ’ s happening in the economy right now — why he chafes at the concept @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he thinks the federal government could have played its hand better when bailing out the airlines , and why he doesn ’ t think it ’ s too late to act .
“ We need to have a clear vision of the post-pandemic economy , ” Stiglitz said .
“ The government has never spent money in the magnitude that it ’ s spending money to deal with the pandemic , and we are probably not going to spend that kind of money in the future .
So we have to make sure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ duty.
” A transcript of our conversation , lightly edited for length and clarity , follows .
One argument at the center of this paper is that we ’ re really in danger of doing too little , rather than too much , to help the economy .
What are the stakes here ?
The magnitude of the economic downturn has been , obviously , unprecedented and enormous .
We know from other economic downturns that there are these irreversibilities — hysteresis , as I sometimes put it .
You don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ starts to recover , that ’ s already gone bankrupt .
There ’ s an enormous amount of organizational and informational capital that gets destroyed .
The longer and deeper the downturn , the harder the recovery is .
That ’ s where the predicate that we are at risk of doing too little rather than too much comes from .
If it turns out that the economy is stronger , the pandemic just disappears — as some people have said , as one person [ President Donald Trump ] has said will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quickly .
Take unemployment insurance .
Nobody ’ s going to choose to be unemployed , or not very many people will .
Even if we appropriate money for unemployment insurance , if unemployment decreases we won ’ t spend the money .
So what ’ s the worry about having the unemployment insurance program there if we need it ?
And if we don ’ t need it , we don ’ t spend the money .
You ’ ve called for the government to “ do what it takes ” on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ late for that ?
Maybe I ’ m too pessimistic , but the stimulus talks don ’ t seem promising .
Obviously , it was very foolish of the Republicans and the administration to say , “ Oh , we ’ ll see how this plays out.
” I could have told them how it was going to play out — we didn ’ t have to see it .
We ’ ve seen the movie before ; we didn ’ t have to see it again .
But on the other hand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already been , it will continue to mount .
If we started to provide extended and augmented unemployment insurance and helped the states and localities , as just two examples , it will reduce the magnitude of the downturn that we would otherwise have and therefore reduce the amount of scarring that we ’ re going to have .
“ Every week that we don ’ t do anything , the damage is going to increase ” It would have been better , as the CARES Act came to an end , if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ round , but we didn ’ t do that .
But the time is now .
Every week that we don ’ t do anything , the damage is going to increase .
And other countries in the world are beginning to recognize that — the UK is just now putting in place a new furlough scheme .
There ’ s a recognition they didn ’ t do an ideal job in the beginning , but it ’ s not too late to make amends .
It doesn ’ t undo the damage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but it prevents more damage .
Right .
Recently , I was talking to coworkers about saving .
Nobody could really be expected to save up the money to ride out a global pandemic , nor do we want everybody hoarding all their money all the time — it would be bad for the economy .
One of the striking things that has emerged more clearly from the pandemic is that America is divided into two broad groups .
Something like half is living paycheck to paycheck , so they don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A large portion of Americans have less than $ 400 , $ 1,000 in their bank accounts .
Now with the pandemic , you run through that $ 400 , $ 500 in a month .
And they haven ’ t paid rent , they haven ’ t paid their mortgages , and all those [ eviction moratorium and forbearance programs ] are coming to an end .
Some of the disaster I see going forward for those people is that the first priority is food , but even with food stamps , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re also going to lose their cars because they ’ re not going to be able to make their car payments .
And then we know their story , because we saw it in 2008 and 2009 : You lose your car , you can ’ t get to work , public transportation in the United States is inadequate , and it ’ s a downward , vicious circle .
You worry about the number of Americans for whom that ’ s their future .
Now , people at the very top @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been saving a lot , partly because the future economic situation is so uncertain .
So that ’ s another aspect of the failure of the Trump administration to provide the assurance that assistance is going to be there .
For those who can save , there ’ s a lot of uncertainty , and they ’ re engaging in precautionary saving .
Firms aren ’ t investing because they don ’ t know where the economy is going .
You get this precautionary behavior that feeds into a deeper economic downturn .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ We ’ re going to be with you , we ’ ll give you whatever it takes , ” you may not need as much money .
People relax because they know we ’ ll have a recovery whenever the pandemic gets under control , and firms start doing investment .
But right now , the failure of the Trump administration and Republicans in the Senate to provide the assistance that ’ s needed and to commit to doing it has actually contributed to the economic downturn .
“ The failure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Senate to provide the assistance that ’ s needed and to commit to doing it has actually contributed to the economic downturn ” So we can say the White House and Congress aren ’ t fully committed to doing whatever it takes , but it seems like the Federal Reserve is .
What ’ s the Fed ’ s role in this ?
The Fed can provide liquidity to companies that are solvent .
But the Fed is not allowed to lend , and it ’ s basically not in the DNA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s no solvency , not even to another bank .
Here ’ s what the issue is : When we thought at the beginning this was going to be a four-week , five-week , 10-week interruption at most , then liquidity was the issue .
I have enough money on my balance sheet , I have a future , I ’ ll survive .
But we ’ re now months into the pandemic , and firms that didn ’ t have enough capital reserves are on the ropes .
The Fed can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — their problem is one of solvency , and that problem will only be addressed , if it can be , by restoring economic growth .
If the economy ’ s not growing — even in a sector where you ’ re not directly affected by the pandemic — people aren ’ t spending as much , and some of those businesses are finding it really , really hard .
That ’ s where we get into what you call “ contagious ” and “ noncontagious ” sectors , no ?
Industries that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ones that aren ’ t ?
So , as an example , there are sailing companies where you could be quite isolated on a boat but nobody ’ s going down to Florida .
You ’ re not in a contagious business , but people have to travel , and to get to you requires exposure .
But people are just conserving their spending .
You ’ ve been critical of some of the government spending on companies , basically saying , “ Why didn ’ t they save up for a rainy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ industry , right ?
What should the federal government have done here ?
I mean , can you really let the airlines fail ?
It ’ s a hard decision , and I understand the politics ; both the airlines and the unions wanted help .
First , I would have put conditions on that money .
One is that they cooperate on tracing .
It ’ s one of the real scandals , that we know that one of the problems is the risk of contagion on the airlines , and they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s sitting where , and they could provide that .
In other countries , they do that .
But the American airlines refused to cooperate .
After getting billions of dollars , they said , “ You have to give us more money on tracing.
” So that ’ s one condition , which I view as a whole set of health conditions trying to control the pandemic .
The second set of conditions are on the carbon footprint , and again , France and some other countries imposed conditions on reducing their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not have given them money , I would have lent them money .
Basically , when you lend them money , there ’ s a downside risk you won ’ t be repaid .
We need some upside potential , which is what we did when we bailed out the auto companies .
We ’ re not in the businesses of giving gifts .
They put themselves in that position of having too little capital buffers , and they paid out huge amounts in share buybacks and dividends .
Why should we bail @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we worry about jobs and we worry about the macro effects , but we can effectively claw back that money from the shareholders by providing it as loans .
The free money is basically going to the rich shareholders .
Recessions always have disparate impacts .
Is this one exacerbating inequality in a way that is unique ?
This virus is not an equal opportunity virus , and the economic impact has not been an equal opportunity impact .
The virus goes after people with poor health conditions , and America doesn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a basic human right .
We have so much inequality— the largest health disparities of any of the advanced countries .
“ People who live on Zoom are not losing their jobs ” The virus has attacked the people at the bottom most , and the economic impact has been disproportionate for people at the bottom .
Contagious sectors , our service sectors with low-paid workers who are often essential workers , they ’ re more exposed and coming down with the disease more .
And because those sectors are disproportionately affected by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jobs at a much higher rate .
People who live on Zoom are not losing their jobs .
You mention in the paper some concerns about a broad-based stimulus .
What do you mean by that ?
Back in 2008 , 2009 , there was a lot of discussion about stimulating the economy .
We talked a little bit about targeted [ relief ] , but it was mostly [ about needing ] a stimulus .
And in the beginning of the pandemic , there was a lot of discussion about the stimulus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is very different on different sectors , and on different parts of the population and the poor .
Therefore , a broad-based expenditure would not be as effective or equitable as a program [ that ’ s ] targeted at the more vulnerable .
A broad-based stimulus could , for instance , lead to an increase in demand for the “ noncontagious sectors.
” The noncontagious sectors are often manufactured goods , and manufactured goods are mostly imported .
That ’ s not going to help the problem in America — we want @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” The service sector is focused on the United States , but that ’ s the contagious sector , and we have to think a lot about how to get money where it ’ s needed .
And the fact that the effects are so different between the bottom and the top means you have to think a lot more than you did in 2008 about how you design and target the programs .
How should we be targeting this ?
If you get a magic wand here , what do you do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , you begin by talking about health .
That ’ s why you have to make sure there ’ s money for hospitals , for testing , for Medicaid for the states to maintain their health care services .
That ’ s priority No .
1 .
Priority No .
2 is that we have to make sure money is getting to the most vulnerable , and that ’ s where unemployment insurance schemes become important .
The United States unemployment insurance program is one of the worst in the world in terms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many states , and that ’ s why the augmented program made a lot of sense .
The third thing , and where the question of whether it ’ s too late worries me , is that from the beginning I thought it was important to keep people attached to their jobs , especially in the United States because workers depend on employers for health insurance .
There were schemes in New Zealand , Denmark , and the UK that tried to do that .
And we tried that with the PPP [ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was a very badly designed program .
It didn ’ t work well , and a lot of the damage has been done .
Some people ask if it ’ s too late .
I think the fact that we ’ re seeing another million , 800,000 , 700,000 people joining the unemployment rolls each week means it ’ s not too late to try to stop that .
It would have been better to do it earlier , but even now , the rate of discharge is very high , and we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the link between workers and their firms .
The hardest thing , I think , is what to do about help for small businesses , particularly as what began as a liquidity problem is being morphed into a solvency problem .
I remember early on in the pandemic this liquidity versus solvency question bubbling up and kind of ignoring it .
It ’ s also true at the household level , and it ’ s not getting a lot of attention .
At the beginning , we had programs to stop evictions , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really amounted to is that low-income and middle-income people have accumulated a huge amount of debt .
“ There is at least a significant risk of real stress even if the economy recovers in 2021 , just from the accumulated debt ” We ’ re going to be facing an eviction problem ; people are going to lose their cars .
If you think the average family spends 25 to 30 percent of their income on housing every year , that means your debt of not paying your rent for a year is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ somebody who ’ s living on the edge , they ’ re not going to be able to make that up .
So we have to think about what is going to happen .
There is at least a significant risk of real stress even if the economy recovers in 2021 , just from the accumulated debt .
Assuming we someday get the pandemic under control , how should we approach the recovery ?
We need to have a clear vision of the post-pandemic economy .
The government has never spent money in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ money to deal with the pandemic , and we are probably not going to spend that kind of money in the future .
So we have to make sure that our money does double or triple duty .
I have a broad sense that we need to move toward a greener economy , a more knowledge-based economy , and I would like a more equal economy .
For instance , when we spend money on installing solar panels or doing insulation , that increases the demand for low-skilled labor and that helps the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ multipliers , and it helps us move toward a greener economy .
When we provide assistance to our universities , which are in dire shape right now , we ’ re making sure that we ’ re not destroying one of the most important sectors of the economy for the post-pandemic world .
One of the things that I find absolutely shocking is that there ’ s been no discussion about what ’ s happening to universities , even though we all know that the leading sectors of the US economy are our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our bio sectors , high-tech sectors .
In the discussion of the pandemic recovery , we talk about the old economy , not the sectors that are going to enable us to be competitive in the future .
A lot of the issues we ’ re talking about right now — inequality , risks to the economy — are things you ’ ve been talking about for a long time , and they ’ re increasingly part of the political discussion .
What makes you hopeful about the current situation , if anything @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than we did before the inequalities in our system , including in our health care system .
When I wrote my book , People , Power , and Profits [ published in 2019 ] , the data was something like two-thirds , three-fourths of Americans want a better health care system .
The number of Americans who want a better health care system now is overwhelming .
The concern about inequality has really , really grown .
That , I think , is a hopeful thing .
I had worried before about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that we had an economy that was too shortsighted and hadn ’ t focused on some of the risks .
Americans have become much more aware about the lack of resilience of our undiversified global supply chains .
I ’ ve written about the important role of the government in protecting us against disasters .
Michael Lewis wrote the book The Fifth Risk , [ which said ] we rely on the government to protect us , and [ that ] the Trump administration and , more generally , conservatives are undermining our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The pandemic has been exhibit No .
1 , and I think people now realize that .
Not everybody , but at least a large number of Americans .
The hopeful note is that a vast majority of Americans and an overwhelming number of young Americans are on board on this agenda .
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Joseph Stiglitz knows the real risk in the middle of a historic pandemic and economic crisis is the United States doing too little, not too much. America doesn’t need to wait and see what happens before deciding whether to respond — the country went through a recession a decade ago.
“We’ve seen this movie before; we didn’t have to see it again,” the Nobel Prize-winning economist said in an exclusive interview with Vox.
There’s no question that an incredible amount of damage has already been done — you can’t un-bankrupt a business that’s already gone under — but it’s still not too late to act. If the federal government does more now, it can prevent the hole the country is in from growing deeper. Otherwise, every day that goes by with inaction, the devastation — which has affected already disadvantaged people much more acutely than it has those at the top — will continue to mount.
Stiglitz put it plainly: “This virus is not an equal opportunity virus, and the economic impact has not been an equal opportunity impact.”
The Columbia University economist and Nobel laureate has published a new paper, shared exclusively with Vox, outlining the risks currently facing the economy amid the Covid-19 pandemic and laying out a potential path back toward an economy that is prosperous and fair. In it, Stiglitz warns of the risks of vicious cycles and downward spirals that generally accompany economic downturns and explores how this time is different: What’s happening in the economy right now is driven by a pandemic, and addressing the health crisis must be the first order of business. The longer the country fails to do that, an economic problem that was initially thought to be short-term liquidity turns into one of long-term solvency for businesses and households. A temporary eviction moratorium only goes so far if, when it’s lifted, people are thousands of dollars in debt.
“There is at least a significant risk of real stress even if the economy recovers in 2021, just from the accumulated debt,” Stiglitz said.
Stiglitz, who has long advocated for the government to take an expanded role in markets, was talking about issues such as wealth concentration, corporate power, and the risks of unfettered capitalism before it was cool. His viewpoint is one the pandemic and resulting economic fallout have made only more relevant as people come to recognize the failures of the country’s health, economic, and political systems.
I spoke with Stiglitz recently about his new paper and his broader take on what’s happening in the economy right now — why he chafes at the concept of “broad-based stimulus,” how he thinks the federal government could have played its hand better when bailing out the airlines, and why he doesn’t think it’s too late to act.
“We need to have a clear vision of the post-pandemic economy,” Stiglitz said. “The government has never spent money in the magnitude that it’s spending money to deal with the pandemic, and we are probably not going to spend that kind of money in the future. So we have to make sure that our money does double or triple duty.”
A transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows.
Emily Stewart
One argument at the center of this paper is that we’re really in danger of doing too little, rather than too much, to help the economy. What are the stakes here?
Joseph Stiglitz
The magnitude of the economic downturn has been, obviously, unprecedented and enormous.
We know from other economic downturns that there are these irreversibilities — hysteresis, as I sometimes put it. You don’t un-bankrupt a firm, after the economy starts to recover, that’s already gone bankrupt. There’s an enormous amount of organizational and informational capital that gets destroyed. The longer and deeper the downturn, the harder the recovery is. That’s where the predicate that we are at risk of doing too little rather than too much comes from.
If it turns out that the economy is stronger, the pandemic just disappears — as some people have said, as one person [President Donald Trump] has said will happen — we can cut back really quickly.
Take unemployment insurance. Nobody’s going to choose to be unemployed, or not very many people will. Even if we appropriate money for unemployment insurance, if unemployment decreases we won’t spend the money. So what’s the worry about having the unemployment insurance program there if we need it? And if we don’t need it, we don’t spend the money.
Emily Stewart
You’ve called for the government to “do what it takes” on the recovery. But is it too late for that? Maybe I’m too pessimistic, but the stimulus talks don’t seem promising.
Joseph Stiglitz
Obviously, it was very foolish of the Republicans and the administration to say, “Oh, we’ll see how this plays out.” I could have told them how it was going to play out — we didn’t have to see it. We’ve seen the movie before; we didn’t have to see it again.
But on the other hand, as bad as the damage has already been, it will continue to mount. If we started to provide extended and augmented unemployment insurance and helped the states and localities, as just two examples, it will reduce the magnitude of the downturn that we would otherwise have and therefore reduce the amount of scarring that we’re going to have.
“Every week that we don’t do anything, the damage is going to increase”
It would have been better, as the CARES Act came to an end, if we had picked up with a new round, but we didn’t do that. But the time is now.
Every week that we don’t do anything, the damage is going to increase. And other countries in the world are beginning to recognize that — the UK is just now putting in place a new furlough scheme. There’s a recognition they didn’t do an ideal job in the beginning, but it’s not too late to make amends. It doesn’t undo the damage from not having an ideal program, but it prevents more damage.
Emily Stewart
Right. Recently, I was talking to coworkers about saving. Nobody could really be expected to save up the money to ride out a global pandemic, nor do we want everybody hoarding all their money all the time — it would be bad for the economy.
Joseph Stiglitz
One of the striking things that has emerged more clearly from the pandemic is that America is divided into two broad groups. Something like half is living paycheck to paycheck, so they don’t have any savings to dip into. A large portion of Americans have less than $400, $1,000 in their bank accounts. Now with the pandemic, you run through that $400, $500 in a month. And they haven’t paid rent, they haven’t paid their mortgages, and all those [eviction moratorium and forbearance programs] are coming to an end. Some of the disaster I see going forward for those people is that the first priority is food, but even with food stamps, it might not be enough.
They’re also going to lose their cars because they’re not going to be able to make their car payments. And then we know their story, because we saw it in 2008 and 2009: You lose your car, you can’t get to work, public transportation in the United States is inadequate, and it’s a downward, vicious circle. You worry about the number of Americans for whom that’s their future.
Now, people at the very top, the top 10 percent, have been saving a lot, partly because the future economic situation is so uncertain. So that’s another aspect of the failure of the Trump administration to provide the assurance that assistance is going to be there. For those who can save, there’s a lot of uncertainty, and they’re engaging in precautionary saving. Firms aren’t investing because they don’t know where the economy is going. You get this precautionary behavior that feeds into a deeper economic downturn.
If the government stepped up and said, “We’re going to be with you, we’ll give you whatever it takes,” you may not need as much money. People relax because they know we’ll have a recovery whenever the pandemic gets under control, and firms start doing investment. But right now, the failure of the Trump administration and Republicans in the Senate to provide the assistance that’s needed and to commit to doing it has actually contributed to the economic downturn.
“The failure of the Trump administration and Republicans in the Senate to provide the assistance that’s needed and to commit to doing it has actually contributed to the economic downturn”
Emily Stewart
So we can say the White House and Congress aren’t fully committed to doing whatever it takes, but it seems like the Federal Reserve is. What’s the Fed’s role in this?
Joseph Stiglitz
The Fed can provide liquidity to companies that are solvent. But the Fed is not allowed to lend, and it’s basically not in the DNA of any central bank, when there’s no solvency, not even to another bank.
Here’s what the issue is: When we thought at the beginning this was going to be a four-week, five-week, 10-week interruption at most, then liquidity was the issue. I have enough money on my balance sheet, I have a future, I’ll survive. But we’re now months into the pandemic, and firms that didn’t have enough capital reserves are on the ropes. The Fed can’t do anything about these firms — their problem is one of solvency, and that problem will only be addressed, if it can be, by restoring economic growth.
If the economy’s not growing — even in a sector where you’re not directly affected by the pandemic — people aren’t spending as much, and some of those businesses are finding it really, really hard.
Emily Stewart
That’s where we get into what you call “contagious” and “noncontagious” sectors, no? Industries that are directly impacted by the pandemic and ones that aren’t?
Joseph Stiglitz
So, as an example, there are sailing companies where you could be quite isolated on a boat but nobody’s going down to Florida. You’re not in a contagious business, but people have to travel, and to get to you requires exposure. But people are just conserving their spending.
Emily Stewart
You’ve been critical of some of the government spending on companies, basically saying, “Why didn’t they save up for a rainy day?” Something like the airline industry, right? What should the federal government have done here? I mean, can you really let the airlines fail?
Joseph Stiglitz
It’s a hard decision, and I understand the politics; both the airlines and the unions wanted help.
First, I would have put conditions on that money. One is that they cooperate on tracing. It’s one of the real scandals, that we know that one of the problems is the risk of contagion on the airlines, and they have all the data on who’s sitting where, and they could provide that. In other countries, they do that. But the American airlines refused to cooperate. After getting billions of dollars, they said, “You have to give us more money on tracing.” So that’s one condition, which I view as a whole set of health conditions trying to control the pandemic. The second set of conditions are on the carbon footprint, and, again, France and some other countries imposed conditions on reducing their carbon footprint.
Second, I would not have given them money, I would have lent them money. Basically, when you lend them money, there’s a downside risk you won’t be repaid. We need some upside potential, which is what we did when we bailed out the auto companies.
We’re not in the businesses of giving gifts. They put themselves in that position of having too little capital buffers, and they paid out huge amounts in share buybacks and dividends. Why should we bail them out? The answer is that we worry about jobs and we worry about the macro effects, but we can effectively claw back that money from the shareholders by providing it as loans. The free money is basically going to the rich shareholders.
Emily Stewart
Recessions always have disparate impacts. Is this one exacerbating inequality in a way that is unique?
Joseph Stiglitz
This virus is not an equal-opportunity virus, and the economic impact has not been an equal-opportunity impact. The virus goes after people with poor health conditions, and America doesn’t recognize access to health care as a basic human right. We have so much inequality — the largest health disparities of any of the advanced countries.
“People who live on Zoom are not losing their jobs”
The virus has attacked the people at the bottom most, and the economic impact has been disproportionate for people at the bottom. Contagious sectors, our service sectors with low-paid workers who are often essential workers, they’re more exposed and coming down with the disease more. And because those sectors are disproportionately affected by the pandemic, they’re losing jobs at a much higher rate. People who live on Zoom are not losing their jobs.
Emily Stewart
You mention in the paper some concerns about a broad-based stimulus. What do you mean by that?
Joseph Stiglitz
Back in 2008, 2009, there was a lot of discussion about stimulating the economy. We talked a little bit about targeted [relief], but it was mostly [about needing] a stimulus. And in the beginning of the pandemic, there was a lot of discussion about the stimulus too.
The impact of the pandemic is very different on different sectors, and on different parts of the population and the poor. Therefore, a broad-based expenditure would not be as effective or equitable as a program [that’s] targeted at the more vulnerable.
A broad-based stimulus could, for instance, lead to an increase in demand for the “noncontagious sectors.” The noncontagious sectors are often manufactured goods, and manufactured goods are mostly imported. That’s not going to help the problem in America — we want people to buy “made in America.”
The service sector is focused on the United States, but that’s the contagious sector, and we have to think a lot about how to get money where it’s needed. And the fact that the effects are so different between the bottom and the top means you have to think a lot more than you did in 2008 about how you design and target the programs.
Emily Stewart
How should we be targeting this? If you get a magic wand here, what do you do?
Joseph Stiglitz
Since this is a pandemic-induced downturn, you begin by talking about health. That’s why you have to make sure there’s money for hospitals, for testing, for Medicaid for the states to maintain their health care services. That’s priority No. 1.
Priority No. 2 is that we have to make sure money is getting to the most vulnerable, and that’s where unemployment insurance schemes become important. The United States unemployment insurance program is one of the worst in the world in terms of both coverage and income replacement in many states, and that’s why the augmented program made a lot of sense.
The third thing, and where the question of whether it’s too late worries me, is that from the beginning I thought it was important to keep people attached to their jobs, especially in the United States because workers depend on employers for health insurance. There were schemes in New Zealand, Denmark, and the UK that tried to do that. And we tried that with the PPP [Paycheck Protection Program], but it was a very badly designed program. It didn’t work well, and a lot of the damage has been done.
Some people ask if it’s too late. I think the fact that we’re seeing another million, 800,000, 700,000 people joining the unemployment rolls each week means it’s not too late to try to stop that. It would have been better to do it earlier, but even now, the rate of discharge is very high, and we have to think of ways to maintain the link between workers and their firms.
The hardest thing, I think, is what to do about help for small businesses, particularly as what began as a liquidity problem is being morphed into a solvency problem.
Emily Stewart
I remember early on in the pandemic this liquidity versus solvency question bubbling up and kind of ignoring it.
Joseph Stiglitz
It’s also true at the household level, and it’s not getting a lot of attention. At the beginning, we had programs to stop evictions, to stop mortgage foreclosure. What that really amounted to is that low-income and middle-income people have accumulated a huge amount of debt.
“There is at least a significant risk of real stress even if the economy recovers in 2021, just from the accumulated debt”
We’re going to be facing an eviction problem; people are going to lose their cars. If you think the average family spends 25 to 30 percent of their income on housing every year, that means your debt of not paying your rent for a year is 30 percent of your income. For somebody who’s living on the edge, they’re not going to be able to make that up.
So we have to think about what is going to happen. There is at least a significant risk of real stress even if the economy recovers in 2021, just from the accumulated debt.
Emily Stewart
Assuming we someday get the pandemic under control, how should we approach the recovery?
Joseph Stiglitz
We need to have a clear vision of the post-pandemic economy. The government has never spent money in the magnitude that it’s spending money to deal with the pandemic, and we are probably not going to spend that kind of money in the future. So we have to make sure that our money does double or triple duty.
I have a broad sense that we need to move toward a greener economy, a more knowledge-based economy, and I would like a more equal economy.
For instance, when we spend money on installing solar panels or doing insulation, that increases the demand for low-skilled labor and that helps the problem of inequality. It has high multipliers, and it helps us move toward a greener economy.
When we provide assistance to our universities, which are in dire shape right now, we’re making sure that we’re not destroying one of the most important sectors of the economy for the post-pandemic world. One of the things that I find absolutely shocking is that there’s been no discussion about what’s happening to universities, even though we all know that the leading sectors of the US economy are our tech sectors, our research sectors, our bio sectors, high-tech sectors. In the discussion of the pandemic recovery, we talk about the old economy, not the sectors that are going to enable us to be competitive in the future.
Emily Stewart
A lot of the issues we’re talking about right now — inequality, risks to the economy — are things you’ve been talking about for a long time, and they’re increasingly part of the political discussion. What makes you hopeful about the current situation, if anything?
Joseph Stiglitz
We’ve seen more graphically than we did before the inequalities in our system, including in our health care system. When I wrote my book, People, Power, and Profits [published in 2019], the data was something like two-thirds, three-fourths of Americans want a better health care system. The number of Americans who want a better health care system now is overwhelming. The concern about inequality has really, really grown. That, I think, is a hopeful thing.
I had worried before about the lack of resilience in our economy, that we had an economy that was too shortsighted and hadn’t focused on some of the risks. Americans have become much more aware about the lack of resilience of our undiversified global supply chains.
I’ve written about the important role of the government in protecting us against disasters. Michael Lewis wrote the book The Fifth Risk, [which said] we rely on the government to protect us, and [that] the Trump administration and, more generally, conservatives are undermining our ability to collectively respond to risk. The pandemic has been exhibit No. 1, and I think people now realize that. Not everybody, but at least a large number of Americans. The hopeful note is that a vast majority of Americans and an overwhelming number of young Americans are on board on this agenda.
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vox--2020-10-28--How long it could take to count the vote this year, explained

Share All sharing options for : How long it could take to count the vote this year , explained The big question overshadowing “ Who will win the presidential election ?
” is : “ When will we actually know who won ?
” The pandemic and historic levels of mail-in voting mean that we have reason to expect that certain states will be very , very slow to count their votes this year — while others will be at least relatively quicker .
Of the six key swing states that will most likely determine the election , the general @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Arizona are in a good place to count most of their votes on election night or soon afterward .
Of course , the closer the margin in any of these states is , the longer it will take to settle who won , and unexpected problems may arise .
But these states have at least done the bare minimum to prepare for the unprecedented number of mailed ballots pouring in this year .
Pennsylvania , Wisconsin , and Michigan — the trio of states that clinched Trump ’ s victory in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republican legislatures in each have almost totally refused to update antiquated policies on how mailed ballots will be processed and counted .
So these states could take days to come even close to finishing their counts .
And if the in-person vote is more pro-Trump than the mail vote in these states , the slow mail count could leave the impression Trump is ahead on election night , even if that ’ s incorrect .
The way the electoral math works , Trump almost certainly can ’ t win the presidency without winning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ states .
That means that , barring a catastrophic polling error flipping undreamed-of states in Trump ’ s favor , he is probably not going to be called the winner on election night .
His path to victory goes through the slow states .
Biden , though , is on the offensive in several other states Trump won last time — states that are expected to be relatively quicker at counting .
If Biden flips must-win states for Trump like Florida or North Carolina , he ’ s almost certain to win the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if he scores surprising wins in some of his reach states , like Georgia , Ohio , or Texas .
Conversely , if Trump manages to hold on in those states — or if they are so close that they remain uncalled — then settle in for a long few days .
This is going to take a while .
There are many normal , if unfortunate , reasons that vote-counting can take a while .
Long lines can keep polling places open late .
Technical difficulties , understaffing , or other assorted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the margin between the candidates is extremely close , even if things are mostly working fine , the winner may take some time to determine .
But in the year of Covid-19 , there ’ s one issue that ’ s looming above all others : how election officials will handle an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots .
The challenge here is that mailed ballots are time-consuming to process since they must be verified against registration information to make sure the vote was properly cast .
Keep in mind what all those in-person @ @ @ @ @ @ @ line for .
You have to identify yourself , and then poll workers will check to see if you are registered , if you ’ re voting in the proper place , and that you haven ’ t voted already .
If everything looks good , you can then go cast your secret ballot .
( If there ’ s a problem , you may be able to cast a provisional ballot , and the decision of whether it will count will be made later . )
For mailed ballots , that verification @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — but it happens after you ’ ve returned your ballot , and you don ’ t get to see it .
Local election officials have to verify that each mail-in ballot was properly cast .
Most notably , the voter ’ s signature must be verified — and some states have further requirements ( like Pennsylvania ’ s secrecy envelopes ) that if not properly completed can also lead ballots to be rejected .
But there ’ s also the physical process of opening all those envelopes , sorting them based on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for counting .
Doing this for hundreds of thousands of mailed-in votes takes quite a while .
There ’ s a simple solution , but Republicans in some states blocked it for political reasons Happily , there ’ s a simple way states can speed things up : They can start processing or even counting mailed ballots before Election Day arrives .
Several states have chosen to do this , though there are a few unfortunate exceptions .
Florida , for instance , started first processing and then counting returned mailed ballots weeks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t be publicly released until polls close on election night ) .
Despite being known for messy , disputed elections , Florida has a history of handling lots of mail ballots and a significant in-person early vote , and the state does tend to get its count done relatively quickly .
( Though the closer the count is , the longer it will take to call a winner . )
Arizona , meanwhile , started processing and counting mail ballots on October 20 .
Arizona also has experience with widespread mail voting , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ improvements in their process .
In 2018 , as officials counted mail ballots slowly , the US Senate race shifted from Martha McSally leading on Election Day to Kyrsten Sinema winning a few days later .
But that year , Arizona ’ s mail ballot processing could only begin a week before Election Day .
Now , a new 2019 law has expanded that window , so processing started two weeks beforehand .
It remains to be seen how it will work in practice , but it ’ s likely that an extra @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In North Carolina , mailed ballots can be processed and approved ballots could be placed in machines starting in late September , and even though the actual count won ’ t begin until Election Day , many will be processed and ready for a quick count .
( North Carolina has a particularly large amount of in-person early votes , which can also be counted speedily . )
The result will be that , in each of these states , a large “ dump ” of already-counted early vote totals ( which can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or be tabulated separated ) will be announced relatively early on election night .
That doesn ’ t necessarily mean a quick call in any of these states — the margin could be close , and the in-person electorate may look quite different from the early-voting electorate .
But if things go roughly as planned , it will probably mean that well over half the votes in these states get counted quickly , simply because they started earlier .
It also means that if the early vote in these states is more pro-Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ early count could give the impression that Biden is ahead — and his lead could shrink as the in-person votes are counted .
But Pennsylvania , Michigan , and Wisconsin refused to take this basic , commonsense step of beginning ballot processing early .
More specifically , those states ’ Republican legislatures refused to change state law to allow this , despite Democrats ’ pleadings .
As a result , the time-consuming process of determining whether each mail-in ballot was properly cast can ’ t start until Election Day itself ( the Michigan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the state start one day early ) .
It could take days to determine the winner in these states .
From the standpoint of good government , this is inexplicable ; it can only be explained by partisan politics .
President Trump has polarized the issue of mail-in voting in an unusual way , such that Republicans have told pollsters they ’ re more likely to vote in-person .
By slowing the count of mail-in votes , Republicans in these states evidently hope the in-person votes will be counted first and show Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ votes are slowly counted for Democrats , Trump can baselessly disparage their gains as illegitimate and based on fraud .
Still , this doesn ’ t have to be a partisan issue — Republican officials in Florida and Arizona have more experience with mail-in balloting and agreed on commonsense provisions for the speedy processing of mailed ballots .
Wisconsin , Michigan , and Pennsylvania are really the odd exceptions here .
On election night , keep in mind mailed votes in Pennsylvania , Wisconsin , and Michigan expected to favor Democrats will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s by design .
There ’ s another hitch with mail voting : Some states will eventually count votes that haven ’ t even arrived on election night because they ’ re still in the mail .
No state will count mail votes that are postmarked after Election Day ( some require the postmark to be the day before ) .
And many states have a hard deadline of counting only mailed ballots that arrive on or before Election Day .
These include Florida , Arizona , Michigan , and Wisconsin ( the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deadline Monday ) .
For mailed ballots , the verification process happens after you ’ ve returned your ballot , and you don ’ t get to see it But some states are a bit more generous to procrastinators , so long as their ballot is postmarked by Election Day or before .
For instance , Pennsylvania currently plans to count ballots arriving up to three days after Election Day ( though the US Supreme Court could change that ) .
North Carolina will count ballots arriving up to nine days after .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to 10 days after the election , though they must be postmarked the day before the election or earlier .
( Some states also have different deadlines for overseas and military voters . )
In states like these , then , there will be a “ tail ” of late-arriving mail votes that will trickle in gradually in the days after the election .
The fact that North Carolina accepts ballots coming in nine days after the election doesn ’ t mean that we won ’ t know North Carolina results until then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ postmarked on Election Day or before .
So the bulk of the outstanding vote will likely come in a few days after the election , with fewer and fewer stragglers as the days pass .
After those first few days , the remaining ballots trickling in would only be relevant in an extraordinarily close election .
Starting ballot processing early is a no-brainer , but the decision on when to set the deadline for mailed ballots involves a trade-off between two goals .
A strict Election Day deadline helps speed up the count @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more votes be counted .
And here again , President Trump has tried to disingenuously portray late-arriving mail votes as fraudulent .
Finally , there are also other , more ordinary reasons votes could be slow to count .
Urban areas often take longer to complete their tallies than suburban or rural ones .
Provisional ballots ( ballots cast when there ’ s a problem with the voter ’ s information , which may or may not later be counted ) take some time to sort out since some states give voters a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Non-swing states like California , New York , and Washington have histories of counting slowly , which explained most of why the 2016 popular vote moved from a tie on election night to a 2.1 percentage point Hillary Clinton advantage by December .
( California , however , has added three extra weeks of ballot processing time this year . )
But when it comes to the Electoral College , the big picture is that Pennsylvania , Michigan , and Wisconsin appear the least likely to produce speedy results on election night @ @ @ @ @ @ @ better prepared , but it ’ s hard to tell in advance how their plans will work out in practice , and any of them could have a close enough margin that a call would take some time anyway .
( For instance , in 2018 , Florida ’ s Senate and governor races were both decided by less than half a percentage point .
It took more than two weeks and three recounts before both races were decided . )
Still , if enough states have their acts together on vote-counting , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on election night without needing to rely on the slow counts from Pennsylvania , Michigan , or Wisconsin .
For instance , Biden currently narrowly leads in the FiveThirtyEight polling averages for Florida , North Carolina , Arizona , Iowa , and Georgia .
Winning Florida alone , plus the solidly blue states , would put Biden quite close to the magic number of 270 electoral votes .
Polls also show Trump up only narrowly in Texas and Ohio , two other electoral vote-rich prizes that , if called for Biden on election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
( Texas has little mail voting but a great deal of in-person early voting , which is quick to count .
Ohio allows counties to start processing ballots early , but does have that 10-day tail for late-arriving mailed ballots , though they must be postmarked the day before election day . )
Trump , meanwhile , would have a very hard time cobbling together 270 electoral votes on election night if we assume that Michigan , Wisconsin , and Pennsylvania won ’ t be called yet .
Here ’ s a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ states he won in 2016 , including those where he ’ s currently trailing in polls .
He ’ s still a bit short .
So to get an election night victory , Trump would have to flip at least two states where polls show him behind quite a bit — perhaps Nevada and Minnesota , or Nevada and New Hampshire .
Overall , it is entirely possible that enough states will count enough votes to signal a clear Biden victory on election night .
But things might also be closer and slower @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is 2020 , after all .
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Share All sharing options for: How long it could take to count the vote this year, explained
The big question overshadowing “Who will win the presidential election?” is: “When will we actually know who won?”
The pandemic and historic levels of mail-in voting mean that we have reason to expect that certain states will be very, very slow to count their votes this year — while others will be at least relatively quicker.
Of the six key swing states that will most likely determine the election, the general expectation is that Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona are in a good place to count most of their votes on election night or soon afterward. Of course, the closer the margin in any of these states is, the longer it will take to settle who won, and unexpected problems may arise. But these states have at least done the bare minimum to prepare for the unprecedented number of mailed ballots pouring in this year.
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan — the trio of states that clinched Trump’s victory in 2016 — are a different story. Republican legislatures in each have almost totally refused to update antiquated policies on how mailed ballots will be processed and counted. So these states could take days to finish their counts. (Wisconsin may come close early Wednesday, however.)
And if the in-person vote is more pro-Trump than the mail vote in these states, the slow mail count could leave the impression Trump is ahead on election night, even if that’s incorrect.
The way the electoral math works, Trump almost certainly can’t win the presidency without winning at least one of those three slow-counting states. That means that, barring a catastrophic polling error flipping undreamed-of states in Trump’s favor, he is probably not going to be called the winner on election night. His path to victory goes through the slow states.
Biden, though, is on the offensive in several other states Trump won last time — states that are expected to be relatively quicker at counting. If Biden flips must-win states for Trump like Florida or North Carolina, he’s almost certain to win the presidency. The same would hold true if he scores surprising wins in some of his reach states, like Georgia, Ohio, or Texas.
Conversely, if Trump manages to hold on in those states — or if they are so close that they remain uncalled — then settle in for a long few days. This is going to take a while.
Mail-in ballots take longer to process
There are many normal, if unfortunate, reasons that vote-counting can take a while. Long lines can keep polling places open late. Technical difficulties, understaffing, or other assorted mishaps can slow reporting. And if the margin between the candidates is extremely close, even if things are mostly working fine, the winner may take some time to determine.
But in the year of Covid-19, there’s one issue that’s looming above all others: how election officials will handle an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots.
The challenge here is that mailed ballots are time-consuming to process since they must be verified against registration information to make sure the vote was properly cast.
Keep in mind what all those in-person voters at polling places are waiting in line for. You have to identify yourself, and then poll workers will check to see if you are registered, if you’re voting in the proper place, and that you haven’t voted already. If everything looks good, you can then go cast your secret ballot. (If there’s a problem, you may be able to cast a provisional ballot, and the decision of whether it will count will be made later.)
For mailed ballots, that verification process still happens, to prevent fraud — but it happens after you’ve returned your ballot, and you don’t get to see it.
Local election officials have to verify that each mail-in ballot was properly cast. Most notably, the voter’s signature must be verified — and some states have further requirements (like Pennsylvania’s secrecy envelopes) that if not properly completed can also lead ballots to be rejected. But there’s also the physical process of opening all those envelopes, sorting them based on precinct, and preparing the physical ballots for counting. Doing this for hundreds of thousands of mailed-in votes takes quite a while.
There’s a simple solution, but Republicans in some states blocked it for political reasons
Happily, there’s a simple way states can speed things up: They can start processing or even counting mailed ballots before Election Day arrives. Several states have chosen to do this, though there are a few unfortunate exceptions.
Florida, for instance, started first processing and then counting returned mailed ballots weeks ago (though the tallies won’t be publicly released until polls close on election night). Despite being known for messy, disputed elections, Florida has a history of handling lots of mail ballots and a significant in-person early vote, and the state does tend to get its count done relatively quickly. (Though the closer the count is, the longer it will take to call a winner.)
Arizona, meanwhile, started processing and counting mail ballots on October 20. Arizona also has experience with widespread mail voting, and they’ve learned to make improvements in their process. In 2018, as officials counted mail ballots slowly, the US Senate race shifted from Martha McSally leading on Election Day to Kyrsten Sinema winning a few days later. But that year, Arizona’s mail ballot processing could only begin a week before Election Day. Now, a new 2019 law has expanded that window, so processing started two weeks beforehand. It remains to be seen how it will work in practice, but it’s likely that an extra week lead time will help significantly.
In North Carolina, mailed ballots can be processed and approved ballots could be placed in machines starting in late September, and even though the actual count won’t begin until Election Day, many will be processed and ready for a quick count. (North Carolina has a particularly large amount of in-person early votes, which can also be counted speedily.)
The result will be that, in each of these states, a large “dump” of already-counted early vote totals (which can include in-person early votes, too, or be tabulated separately) will be announced relatively early on election night.
That doesn’t necessarily mean a quick call in any of these states — the margin could be close, and the in-person electorate may look quite different from the early-voting electorate. But if things go roughly as planned, it will probably mean that well over half the votes in these states get counted quickly, simply because they started earlier.
It also means that if the early vote in these states is more pro-Biden than the election day vote, the early count could give the impression that Biden is ahead — and his lead could shrink as the in-person votes are counted.
But Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin refused to take this basic, commonsense step of beginning ballot processing early. More specifically, those states’ Republican legislatures refused to change state law to allow this, despite Democrats’ pleadings. As a result, the time-consuming process of determining whether each mail-in ballot was properly cast can’t start until Election Day itself (the Michigan GOP deigned to let some areas of the state start one day early).
From the standpoint of good government, this is inexplicable; it can only be explained by partisan politics. President Trump has polarized the issue of mail-in voting in an unusual way, such that Republicans have told pollsters they’re more likely to vote in-person. By slowing the count of mail-in votes, Republicans in these states evidently hope the in-person votes will be counted first and show Trump ahead. Then, when those mail votes are slowly counted for Democrats, Trump can baselessly disparage their gains as illegitimate and based on fraud.
Still, this doesn’t have to be a partisan issue — Republican officials in Florida and Arizona have more experience with mail-in balloting and agreed on commonsense provisions for the speedy processing of mailed ballots. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are really the odd exceptions here.
On election night, keep in mind mailed votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan expected to favor Democrats will be counted more slowly — and that’s by design.
The mail tail
There’s another hitch with mail voting: Some states will eventually count votes that haven’t even arrived on election night because they’re still in the mail.
No state will count mail votes that are postmarked after Election Day (some require the postmark to be the day before). And many states have a hard deadline of counting only mailed ballots that arrive on or before Election Day. These include Florida, Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin (the Supreme Court just upheld Wisconsin’s deadline Monday).
For mailed ballots, the verification process happens after you’ve returned your ballot, and you don’t get to see it
But some states are a bit more generous to procrastinators, so long as their ballot is postmarked by Election Day or before. For instance, Pennsylvania currently plans to count ballots arriving up to three days after Election Day (though the US Supreme Court could change that). North Carolina will count ballots arriving up to nine days after. And Ohio will count ballots received up to 10 days after the election, though they must be postmarked the day before the election or earlier. (Some states also have different deadlines for overseas and military voters.)
In states like these, then, there will be a “tail” of late-arriving mail votes that will trickle in gradually in the days after the election.
The fact that North Carolina accepts ballots coming in nine days after the election doesn’t mean that we won’t know North Carolina results until then. Remember, the ballots must be postmarked on Election Day or before. So the bulk of the outstanding vote will likely come in a few days after the election, with fewer and fewer stragglers as the days pass. After those first few days, the remaining ballots trickling in would only be relevant in an extraordinarily close election.
Starting ballot processing early is a no-brainer, but the decision on when to set the deadline for mailed ballots involves a trade-off between two goals. A strict Election Day deadline helps speed up the count, but a more lenient deadline helps more votes be counted. And here again, President Trump has tried to disingenuously portray late-arriving mail votes as fraudulent.
The big picture for election night
Finally, there are also other, more ordinary reasons votes could be slow to count. Urban areas often take longer to complete their tallies than suburban or rural ones. Provisional ballots (ballots cast when there’s a problem with the voter’s information, which may or may not later be counted) take some time to sort out since some states give voters a chance to correct problems with their information.
Non-swing states like California, New York, and Washington have histories of counting slowly, which explained most of why the 2016 popular vote moved from a tie on election night to a 2.1 percentage point Hillary Clinton advantage by December. (California, however, has added three extra weeks of ballot processing time this year.)
But when it comes to the Electoral College, the big picture is that Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin appear the least likely to produce speedy results on election night.
The other swing states generally seem better prepared, but it’s hard to tell in advance how their plans will work out in practice, and any of them could have a close enough margin that a call would take some time anyway. (For instance, in 2018, Florida’s Senate and governor races were both decided by less than half a percentage point. It took more than two weeks and three recounts before both races were decided.)
Still, if enough states have their acts together on vote-counting, Biden does have plausible paths to victory on election night without needing to rely on the slow counts from Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin.
For instance, Biden currently narrowly leads in the FiveThirtyEight polling averages for Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Iowa, and Georgia. Winning Florida alone, plus the solidly blue states, would put Biden quite close to the magic number of 270 electoral votes.
Polls also show Trump up only narrowly in Texas and Ohio, two other electoral vote-rich prizes that, if called for Biden on election night, could signal a Biden landslide. (Texas has little mail voting but a great deal of in-person early voting, which is quick to count. Ohio allows counties to start processing ballots early, but does have that 10-day tail for late-arriving mailed ballots, though they must be postmarked the day before election day.)
Trump, meanwhile, would have a very hard time cobbling together 270 electoral votes on election night if we assume that Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania won’t be called yet. Here’s a map that gives Trump all the other states he won in 2016, including those where he’s currently trailing in polls. He’s still a bit short.
So to get an election night victory, Trump would have to flip at least two states where polls show him behind quite a bit — perhaps Nevada and Minnesota, or Nevada and New Hampshire.
Overall, it is entirely possible that enough states will count enough votes to signal a clear Biden victory on election night. But things might also be closer and slower and take longer to call. It is 2020, after all.


vox--2020-10-28--Days before the election, the Senate will take time to grill Big Tech CEOs — again

President Trump , Attorney General Bill Barr , and a chorus of Republican legislators have been calling for a repeal or significant change to a law called Section 230 for years .
Now , for the first time , the CEOs of Facebook , Twitter , and Google are testifying Wednesday before a congressional committee specifically about Section 230 — and its future .
Mark Zuckerberg , Jack Dorsey , and Sundar Pichai will ( virtually ) come before the Senate Commerce Committee to discuss , as per the hearing ’ s title , “ Does Section 230 ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
” But they will also be asked about digital privacy and how the digital ad industry has hurt journalism .
The hearing , which comes less than a week before the presidential election , will address what has become a major issue among some conservatives .
Republican officials will have a chance to score political points by complaining about a perceived anti-conservative bias in social media and bash the people they deem responsible for supposedly silencing conservative voices on a big stage .
Democrats also have concerns about Big Tech ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as some of these companies face increased scrutiny over antitrust practices and even lawsuits .
You can watch the hearing live here : In their prepared remarks , Zuckerberg , Dorsey , and Pichai offered somewhat contrasting positions on the topic of Section 230 .
Zuckerberg seemed to favor changes to Section 230 , Dorsey argues that “ sweeping regulations can further entrench companies that have large market shares ” and suggests that large platforms like Facebook can afford to comply with new rules , while smaller companies can not .
Pichai @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its users and doesn ’ t want to be political .
Still , the hearing is political , as Sen. Ted Cruz made very clear in a tweet that framed the event as a boxing match .
Cruz referred to the hearing as the “ Free Speech Showdown ” and Dorsey as the “ Censorship Czar.
” Section 230 allows websites like Facebook and Twitter to host content from users without being civilly liable for that content .
For instance , you can sue a Twitter user for a defamatory tweet , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This is what enables these sites to exist in the first place .
Without immunity from lawsuits over third-party content , platforms wouldn ’ t allow it at all .
The law also allows platforms to moderate user content as they see fit without losing that immunity .
That has become a major sticking point for conservatives who feel that platforms are unfairly censoring them .
Trump has called for an outright repeal of the law , while Barr and several Republican legislators want to change it to require websites to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Democrats also have issues with Section 230 and have promoted bipartisan proposals to change it .
Their complaints are mostly focused on giving victims of illegal actions committed by a platform ’ s users to have recourse to sue the platforms if they allowed or encouraged those actions .
That was the logic behind FOSTA-SESTA , which removed immunity protections from sites that host sex trafficking ads .
It ’ s also part of the EARN IT Act , which would remove immunity from sites that host child sexual abuse materials .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , proposed by Democrat Sen. Brian Schatz and Republican Sen. John Thune in June .
This would amend Section 230 to force websites to clearly explain their moderation rules in an acceptable use policy , issue quarterly reports detailing content that has been moderated , respond quickly to reported violations , and give users a chance to appeal violations , or else lose their immunity protections .
It would also give the Federal Trade Commission ( FTC ) the ability to enforce some of those rules .
It ’ s likely that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , will focus their questions to the CEOs on moderation biases that they believe unfairly target conservatives .
Though multiple studies and reports have shown that conservative content is more widely shared and spread on platforms than liberal material , Republicans have come to view Section 230 as the reason why social media platforms censor conservative political opinions or figures , rather than those opinions or people breaking platforms ’ rules .
The most high-profile recent examples are Twitter ’ s fact-checks of several Trump tweets that contained misinformation , and Facebook and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spread of a New York Post story of questionable veracity about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden ’ s son Hunter Biden .
Republicans have used their spotlight in other tech-related hearings to rail against Big Tech companies for perceived anti-conservative bias and they will likely do so here as well .
As for the Democrats , they may well touch on Section 230 — the EARN IT and PACT Acts were co-authored by Democrats and committee members Richard Blumenthal and Brian Schatz , respectively — but will likely also ask about digital privacy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ business practices have harmed local news outlets .
Democrats refused to agree to subpoena the CEOs until those topics were added to the hearing , and ranking committee member Sen. Maria Cantwell just issued a report , “ Local Journalism : America ’ s Most Trusted News Sources Threatened , ” that placed much of the blame for the journalism industry ’ s woes at Google and Facebook ’ s digital feet .
If there ’ s one thing both sides of the aisle agree on , it ’ s that Big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has too much control over many aspects of American life .
This hearing should give us a preview of what they hope to do about it .
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CEOs from two of the biggest companies in the world (and Twitter) testified in front of the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday in a hearing that was billed as a deliberation over Section 230. It ended up being more about castigating social media platforms both for censoring voices too much and for not censoring them enough.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey appeared before an almost entirely virtual panel of legislators, none of whom seemed particularly thrilled with the CEOs’ work. But their complaints differed depending on their political party. Republicans generally used the hearing to scold the companies for censoring conservative voices to the extent that they may influence the outcome of the election in Biden’s favor. Democrats objected to having a hearing at all and asked the CEOs what they were doing to suppress violent extremism and election interference on their platforms.
If nothing else, the hearings showed a bipartisan dislike and mistrust of social media platforms and a desire to do something about them.
The hearing was titled “Does Section 230’s Sweeping Immunity Enable Big Tech Bad Behavior?” — that bad behavior being, to its vocal conservative opponents, social media platforms censoring political viewpoints with which they disagree. But the law is much bigger than that. Section 230 allows websites to host content from users without being liable for it. For instance, you can sue a Twitter user for a defamatory tweet, but you can’t sue Twitter itself. This is what enables these sites to exist in the first place. Without immunity from lawsuits over third-party content, platforms wouldn’t allow it at all.
The law also allows platforms to moderate user content as they see fit without losing that immunity, a fact that has become a major sticking point for conservatives who feel that platforms are unfairly censoring them. While Attorney General Bill Barr and several Republican legislators want to change Section 230 to require websites to be “politically neutral” in moderation decisions, President Trump has called for an outright repeal of the law. In fact, the president repeated that demand while Wednesday’s hearing was still in progress:
The USA doesn’t have Freedom of the Press, we have Suppression of the Story, or just plain Fake News. So much has been learned in the last two weeks about how corrupt our Media is, and now Big Tech, maybe even worse. Repeal Section 230! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 28, 2020
Democrats have their own issues with Section 230 and Big Tech in general. But in the hearing, those concerns took a back seat to their grievances against its timing and the pro-Trump messages they believed committee Republicans were using it to convey.
Most Republicans barely mentioned Section 230 and instead focused on social media moderation and a perceived silencing of conservative voices, the oft-noted examples of such being President Trump’s fact-checked tweets and the New York Post’s story on Hunter Biden, which Twitter and Facebook initially limited the spread of. There were also several questions about the political ideologies of employees and people who make moderation decisions, with the implication being that very few of them are conservative.
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) were especially emphatic about these points. Cruz, a frequent critic of Section 230, even advertised his appearance at the hearing on Twitter and Facebook the night before, calling it a “Free Speech Showdown,” complete with custom art that resembled a poster for a boxing match. Cruz opened his questions by saying the CEOs testifying before him “collectively pose the single greatest threat to free speech in America and the greatest threat we have to free and fair elections.” His use of his time didn’t really get better from there.
“Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear, and why do you persist in behaving as a Democratic Super PAC?” Cruz demanded. Dorsey responded that he is not in charge of those things. Cruz then retweeted several news articles containing his quote as well as posting his own video of it, indicating that his question to Dorsey was meant more for political theater than anything else.
Johnson tried to nail the CEOs down on how many of their employees are liberal and how many are conservative. In response, Dorsey said his company doesn’t keep track of employees’ politics, Pichai said he believed his employees have many different viewpoints, and Zuckerberg said he didn’t know for sure but assumes Facebook skews liberal — which was the only answer Johnson seemed to believe.
Several Republicans also pointed out that Twitter let untrue or violent tweets from other world leaders stay up while punishing Trump for his tweets, even though, as Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) said, they are “true.” One example was a series of tweets from Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that seemed to promote violence against Israel, which are still on the platform.
“We did not find those to violate our terms of service because we consider them sabre-rattling, which is part of the speech of world leaders in concert with other countries,” Dorsey said. “Speech against our own people or a country’s own citizens, we believe, is different and can cause more immediate harm.”
Some Democrats used their time to criticize the timing and subject of the hearing, calling it part of a coordinated Republican effort to bully platforms into keeping conservative-leaning content up, even if it violates their policies, as well as to amplify the New York Post’s story to try to influence the outcome of the election. Others brought up how social media platforms have facilitated violent extremist groups to meet and organize and foreign powers to influence the elections. They asked the CEOs what they plan to do to prevent or squelch this content on their respective platforms as the election approaches, and whether they would pledge to stop or prevent election interference on their platforms. Dorsey, Pichai, and Zuckerberg all pledged to do so.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) noted that Facebook makes more money when people spend more time on it, and divisive political content has been shown to contribute to that engagement.
“Does that bother you, what it’s done to our politics?” she asked.
Zuckerberg said the platform is designed to show users the content that’s most important to them.
“Most of the content on the systems is not political, it’s things like making sure you can see when your cousin had her baby,” he said.
“That’s not what I’m talking about, the cousins and the babies here,” Klobuchar said. “I’m talking about conspiracy theories … I think it’s been corrosive.”
But some senators actually took the time to ask the CEOs seemingly genuine questions about their moderation policies and algorithms as well as how Section 230 could be re-written to provide more clarity to users. Sen. Shelley Capito (R-WV) asked if giving Section 230’s “otherwise objectionable” rule for the type of content platforms are allowed to moderate more specific guidelines would be a solution. Zuckerberg noted that having to spell out which content is objectionable and which is not would limit their ability to moderate bullying or harassment. Dorsey and Zuckerberg said multiple times during the hearing that they would be open to increased transparency on their platforms with regard to moderation decisions.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), who proposed a bipartisan bill about Section 230, said he hoped to have “good faith” discussion about the law after the election. A future hearing about Section 230 is certainly possible regardless of the election’s outcome, as Trump’s feelings are well-known and Biden has said he is in favor of revoking the law — a stance that a campaign official told Recode hasn’t changed.
The co-author of Section 230, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) is not a member of the Commerce Committee and so wasn’t at the hearing. But he wasn’t quiet about it, issuing a statement along the lines of many Democrats’ complaints.
“After watching the hearing today, I don’t believe my Republican colleagues have read the First Amendment, let alone Section 230,” Wyden said. “Their obsession with forcing private companies to print misinformation, lies and hate speech is unconstitutional and lays bare how little this is about Section 230 and how much it is a transparent attempt to work the refs a week before the election.”
Wyden added, “Today’s sad spectacle shows how far this body is from having a rational debate about how to make the internet a better place.”
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