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America’s Post-Pandemic Future: A Demographic Perspective

By David Swanson posted 01-04-2022 13:43

  

David A. Swanson, Peter Morrison, Dudley PostonSteven Krantz, Arni Rao *

During the 365-day period ending December 1, 2021, official data registered 265,377 COVID-19 deaths nationwide to persons 15 and older living in the 50 U.S. states, bringing the total COVID-19 deaths to more than 800,000. This death toll is approaching the nearly 850,000 deaths that occurred during the Civil War. If this year’s pace continues over the coming year, we will see over 1 million total deaths due to COVID-19 and its variants, which will exceed not only the death toll from the Civil War but all of the wars and military actions in which the US has engaged since the Civil War.

Even if the pandemic comes under control, COVID-19 deaths have already shaped the nation’s future. How will this happen? Let us take the 265,377 deaths that occurred this past year as a starting point.

Current U.S. life tables posit that a 15-year-old will survive nearly 65 more years. That expectation implies 6,500,000 person-years of remaining life for 100,000 persons age 15. If 10,000 of them were to die today, there would be 650,000 potential years of life lost (PYLL) to them. As the graph below shows, the 265,377 COVID-19 deaths last year to those 15 years and older translate into 4.451 million PYLL, a number that not only far exceeds the 3.5 million PYLL due to heart disease deaths in 2018, but also the 4.28 million PYLL due to cancer deaths that occurred in 2017.

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Linking this past year’s PYLL to the (weighted) 2020 per capita personal income of $60,548 across the 50 states shows an expected loss in personal income of $269.5 billion in today’s dollars. Lost personal income means lost state tax revenue. Across all 50 states, the sales, income, and license taxes collected in 2020 amount to $3,357 per capita. Factoring in 4.451 million PYLL implies a reduction in today’s dollars of $14.94 billion in state-level revenues over the next 65 years.

Because the pandemic became politicized, it is worthwhile to explore the effect of last year’s COVID-19 PYLL by comparing the 25 (Red) states carried by Trump in the 2020 election to the 25 (Blue) states carried by Biden. This comparison uses the same data sources as the national level assessment.

The Red states lost 140,943 people who were 15 years and older to COVID-19 while the 25 states (Blue) carried by Biden lost 124,434. With 89.7 million people aged 15 years and over (as counted in the 2020 census), the Red states have about 1.4 million more than the Blue states (88.3 million). Keep in mind that the 2010 census was the basis for the Electoral College presidential votes in 2020. In addition to having a larger population, the COVID-19 death rate is also higher in the Red states, with 0.157 deaths per 100,000 (aged 15 years and over) vs. 0.141 in the Blue states.

The 140,943 COVID-19 decedents in the Red states translates into 2.243 million PYLL while the 124,434 who died in Blue states translate into 2.208 million. The higher number of COVID-19 deaths in Red states results in 35,000 more PYLL than found in the Blue states.

Applying the PYLL to the (weighted) 2020 per capita personal income in the Red states of $54,920 shows that the Red states can expect to lose $123.2 billion in personal income in today’s dollars over the next 65 years. With a (weighted) 2020 per capita personal income of $66,193, the Blue states will lose $146.2 billion in today’s dollars over the next 65 years.

Looking only at sales, income, and license taxes, the 2021 tax total for the 25 Blue states was $4,390 per capita while for the 25 Red states it was $2,337. Applying the respective PYLL to these per capita totals yields a total loss of $9.7 billion in today’s dollars for the 25 Blue states and a loss of $5.24 billion for the 25 Red states over the next 65 years.

With about 804,000 COVID-19 deaths posted to-date, the U.S. already has approximately 13.6 million PYLL, with 6.85 million in Red states and 6.75 million in Blue states. These numbers translate into a loss of $823 billion of personal income in today’s dollars over the next 65 years with about $376 billion of this lost to Red states and the remainder, $447 billion, to Blue states. With these losses in personal income, we can expect a loss in today’s dollars of $45.6 billion in sales, income, and license taxes to the 50 states, of which $16 billion will be lost to Red states and $29.6 billion to Blue states.

The future losses in personal income and tax revenue from this past year of COVID-19 deaths are noticeable, but not overwhelming because they will be spread over the next 65 or so years. Even still, they will affect the economies and the budgets of these states (state government budgets, unlike the Federal Government, are required to be balanced). However, when you consider the future losses from all of the COVID-19 deaths to-date they are more than noticeable, they are sobering. You can see where this will go if the pandemic continues apace over the coming year and the actions to deal with it remain the same for the U.S. as a whole and across the Red-Blue divide: We will add approximately 265,000 deaths to the 804,000 or so that have occurred to-date and these 1.3 million or so COVID-19 deaths will translate into nearly 22 million PYLL, of which approximately 11.1 million will be in Red states and 10.9 million in Blue states. If the pandemic continues beyond next year at this same pace, the income and tax revenue losses will start the transition from sobering to staggering.  

The losses resulting from 22 million PYLL will not be confined to income and tax revenues.  As an example of other losses, consider the following. According to the 2018 “Time Use” Survey (done prior to the pandemic) the non-institutional civilian population aged 15 years and over spent an average of 29.2 hours attending religious services over the course of the year. Twenty-two million PYLL due to COVID-19 will lead to a loss of nearly 636 million person-hours in religious service attendance across the 50 states over the next 65 years, with about 321 million lost in Red states and 315 million in Blue states. This same survey shows that Americans spent an average of 47.45 hours providing volunteer work to various service organizations in 2018. These organizations can expect a reduction of approximately 1 billion person-hours of volunteer service over the next 65 years, with about 505 million lost in Red states and 495 million in Blue states.  These future reductions are sobering and if the pandemic continues the reductions will start the transition to staggering. And, of course, there is the increased burden placed on health professionals, including the PYLL resulting from deaths they themselves will suffer from caring for those with COVID-19.

 

*The authors are grateful to Emily Merchant for her editing and comments provided by Tom Bryan

 

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