This paper examines how the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated policy responses affected federal, state, and local government budgets. The pandemic raised federal deficits temporarily but has had a modest effect on long-term budget projections, in part because of sharply lower projections of interest rates. With low interest rates and the economy in recession, the debt accumulation resulting from the pandemic does not require immediate offsetting policies. For state and local governments, we note the unusual nature of the current recession: the concentration of job losses among low-wage workers; the unprecedented increases and expansions of unemployment insurance benefits and business loans; and strong performance by the stock market. To address these issues, we use a bottom-up approach that accounts for the geographic variation in economic outcomes. Relative to analyses based on the historical relation between revenues and the unemployment rate, we estimate notably smaller revenue losses. We further estimate that federal aid has been large relative to these revenue losses, but not necessarily relative to need—for public health, remedial schooling, services for the elderly, and others—especially if the pandemic persists and especially in certain hard-hit states.

本文研究了 COVID-19 大流行和相关的政策反应如何影响联邦、州和地方政府预算。大流行暂时增加了联邦赤字，但对长期预算预测的影响不大，部分原因是利率预测大幅降低。在低利率和经济衰退的情况下，大流行导致的债务积累不需要立即采取抵消政策。对于州和地方政府，我们注意到当前经济衰退的不同寻常之处：失业集中在低薪工人；失业保险金和商业贷款的空前增加和扩张；以及股市的强劲表现。为了解决这些问题，我们使用自下而上的方法来解释经济结果的地域差异。相对于基于收入与失业率之间历史关系的分析，我们估计收入损失明显较小。我们进一步估计，相对于这些收入损失而言，联邦援助是巨大的，但不一定与需求相关——公共卫生、补习教育、老年人服务等——特别是如果大流行持续存在，尤其是在某些受灾严重的州.