San Francisco Economic Recovery

Information and Ideas to Reopen San Francisco

Economic Recovery Task Force (ERTF) Charter

On the 24th of April, 2020 San Francisco launched the Economic Recovery Task Force as a response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Task Force is charged with guiding the City’s efforts through the COVID-19 recovery to sustain and revive local businesses and employment, mitigate the economic hardships already affecting the most vulnerable San Franciscans, and build a resilient and equitable future.

Information and Ideas. Collected and Shared

Our partner, Jarie, is on the task force and has decided to periodically publish what he has found and what others have shared with him. To be clear, this is entirely independent of the task force’s formal work and is no way to be considered official or anything like that. It’s Jarie’s thoughts and ideas that he’s sharing with them. Take a look below for the lists of all the updates.

Updates

Update #5 on 15th, May 2020: I wish I could take credit for the title of this post but that goes to the Atlantic. BTW, they have been doing a fantastic job covering all this. The reason I chose to use it is that everyone I have been talking too is feeling the fatigue, especially those who now look at a screen all day. We need to get SMARTER about how we manage the reopening. This is not going to be easy but there will be a point where quarantine will take a greater toll on people and the economy than COVID-19.

Update #4 on 8th, May 2020: Risk Reward Luck Success — I have been thinking a lot about Risk vs Reward as well as Luck and Success. The later made me reread the article The Role of Luck in Life Success Is Far Greater Than We Realized. The net of it was that, in general, mediocre-but-lucky people were much more successful than more-talented-but-unlucky individuals. The most successful agents tended to be those who were only slightly above average in talent but with a lot of luck in their lives.[Reference].

Update #3 on 4th, May 2020: The Kids are Not All Right — Kids are suffering as the collective trauma of shelter in place goes into its 8th week. It’s clear from the crisis lines, ER’s, and parents groups, that kids are taking the brunt of the trauma of stressed-out parents and in the worst case, physical and sexual abuse. The normal mandatory reporter network of teachers (over 20% of reports) and after school programs have been dismantled. This leaves the most vulnerable without a voice.

Update #2 on 1st, May 2020: Don’t Ignore Startups — The Startup Genome released this excellent analysis of policies they feel will help startups as well as for economic recovery. We tend to overlook startups since they don’t have (in some cases) an immediate effect on economic developed but that’s not actually true.

Update #1 on 28th, April 2020: The Parent Trap — Parents are worried about when they have to go to work, they will not have childcare. I have heard this from multiple parents and it’s a real concern. Social distancing is having a big effect on kids and some parents are doing “porch playdates” to give their kids some social interaction with other kids. Distance learning is also top of mind with a wide variety of different approaches across grade and school in the SFUSD. It’s maddening how much time on the computer they have.