"Early on, some likened the public health crisis to a blizzard, imagining that people would stay home, cozy up with their romantic partners and make babies."

"These playful visions have given way to a more sobering reality: The pandemic’s serious disruption of people’s lives is likely to cause 'missing births' — potentially a lot of them. Add these missing births to the country’s decade-long downward trend in annual births and we can expect consequential changes to our economy and society in the years to come.... Millions of parents are dealing with the stress of combining their work responsibilities with the need to supervise and teach their children who no longer attend school five days a week. This raises the 'cost' of rearing children and can be expected to lead to fewer siblings being conceived this year. Moreover, restrictions on social activities also mean some relationships that would have started in 2020 (and might have led to babies someday) never took root. We have no precedent to estimate changes in birthrates from these disruptions, but they will undoubtedly also contribute to a large reduction in overall births.... Some women and couples will have fewer children than they hoped, and some kids will grow up without the younger sibling they would have had otherwise. This could contribute to what some have referred to as America’s loneliness epidemic.... But the real societal challenge of a Covid baby bust will be a smaller work force.... In the absence of effective policies to meaningfully increase births, the most reliable and immediate way to shore up the U.S. population is through immigration, which brings its own political and social challenges...."

From "We Expect 300,000 Fewer Births Than Usual This Year/Signs are pointing to a sizable pandemic baby bust in the United States, with implications that will be with us for years to come" by economics professors Melissa S. Kearney and Phillip B. Levine (NYT).

"We are deeply disappointed in this decision. We are not going to give up the fight to raise the minimum wage to $15 to help millions of struggling American workers..."

"... and their families. The American people deserve it, and we are committed to making it a reality." 

Said Chuck Schumer, quoted in "Biden’s minimum wage increase runs afoul of budget rules/The Senate parliamentarian has issued a ruling that could jeopardize the rest of the president’s $1.9 trillion Covid relief package" (Politico).

Speaking of reality, do you think he's really disappointed? I imagine he's relieved. He and his party have the benefit of looking as though they tried and the benefit of not having the potentially deleterious policy actually imposed on us.

"A growing chorus of economists is seeking to dislodge the editor of a top academic publication, the University of Chicago economist Harald Uhlig, after he criticized the Black Lives Matter organization on Twitter..."

"... and equated its members with 'flat earthers' over their embrace of calls to defund police departments.... Mr. Uhlig’s Twitter posts criticized demonstrators.... 'Look: I understand, that some out there still wish to go and protest and say #defundpolice and all kinds of stuff, while you are still young and responsibility does not matter,' Mr. Uhlig wrote. 'Enjoy! Express yourself! Just don’t break anything, ok? And be back by 8 pm.'... Mr. Uhlig, a 59-year-old German citizen, also faced scrutiny over past writings on his blog.... Those included a 2017 post in which he asked supporters of National Football League players kneeling to protest police brutality, 'Would you defend football players waving the confederate flag and dressing in Ku Klux Klan garb during the playing of the national anthem?' Mr. Uhlig also wrote a letter to the editor of The New York Times in 2016, complaining about calls for greater diversity in the motion picture industry at the Academy Awards. 'This whole "diversity = more American blacks in Hollywood movies" thing?' he wrote. 'So so strange. Really.' Janet L. Yellen, the former Federal Reserve chair, said in an email on Wednesday that 'the tweets and blog posts by Harald Uhlig are extremely troubling' and that 'it would be appropriate for the University of Chicago, which is the publisher of the Journal of Political Economy, to review Uhlig’s performance and suitability to continue as editor.'"

From "Economics, Dominated by White Men, Is Roiled by Black Lives Matter/The editor of a top academic journal faces calls to resign after criticizing protesters as 'flat earthers' for wanting to defund the police" (NYT).

ADDED: "Would you defend football players waving the confederate flag and dressing in Ku Klux Klan garb during the playing of the national anthem?" That's a perfectly phrased Socratic question, so let's raise a glass for Professor Uhlig.