It's been close to a year since March 11, 2020, when the World Health Organization officially declared the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic and our daily lives completely changed — with enormous financial implications for many Americans.
If the pandemic affected your income, expenses, or anything else about your relationship with money, we want to hear your story.
Millions of Americans unexpectedly lost their jobs, and many had to spend countless hours job searching and following up on unemployment claims — all while losing out on income.
I literally don’t know how to make money right now. I lost my on-campus job due to Covid and I haven’t been able to find anything since.
The unemployment rate peaked in April 2020 at 14.7%. To put that into perspective, by April 30, some 30.3 million Americans had already filed for unemployment benefits — and sadly that number only continued to rise.
At the same time, many new high school and college grads are struggling to begin their careers as they compete against workers with years of experience for entry-level jobs.
I just graduated college in a plague year!! When December ends I’ll be making student loan payments.... except I can’t find a job after I lost mine earlier this plague year. #CancelStudentDebt
About 2 million students completed their bachelor's degrees in the 2019/2020 school year, and economists believe it could take up to 10 years for many of them to recover from having to start their careers during the economic downturn caused by the pandemic.
And for those who contracted the coronavirus, getting the medical care they deserve often came at a steep cost.
I’ve been up all night. I was looking for a doc cause my meds almost gone and I saw my hospital bill. Anybody want to take a guess at how much a 6 night stay in the hospital with #COVID cost?
FAIR Health, a non-profit that manages a medical billing database, estimates the average bill for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 to be $73,300. For patients with private insurance, the average is estimated to be around $38,221.
And through it all, many of us have had to totally re-think our spending, saving, and budgeting habits as we adjust to life during a pandemic.
Covid changed my family's spending. No longer go to restaurants. Limiting amount of time in stores, ordering dog food/treats, much of our food & clothing online. The $ we spend in Edmond is way down. Today, Amazon is shipping me deodorant. That's not a #Covantange @GovStitt
As of September 2020, nearly two-thirds of Americans surveyed by Bank of America reported that their spending habits changed due to the pandemic.