With last week’s jaw-dropping unemployment figures showing 3.3 million people applied for unemployment insurance, it is increasingly clear just how seriously Americans are facing abrupt and devastating personal consequences due to our prudent and necessary social distancing measures in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

This has led some leaders and commentators to ask if it is all worth it or if the cure, in this case, is, in fact, worse than the disease. We must balance not letting the illness spread and not letting it choke our economy, goes the argument, as if the economy could thrive with the virus still being transmitted.