Tracking the Pandemic’s Economic Impact on Youth

21 January 2021

Research by NIF grantee, the Berl Katznelson Foundation, has found that Israelis under 28-years-old have been hit hardest by the economic fallout, including by unemployment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Their research surveyed a representative sample of 600 Israelis aged 19-28 (not including soldiers or those performing national service). 80% of those surveyed reported economic effects from the crisis. 33% said they had been seriously impacted. 66% reported that they received more than $300 monthly in financial support from their parents (an increase of 45% from before the crisis). 70% of students surveyed reported adverse economic impacts. 25% of those surveyed were unemployed.

The survey was undertaken in November before the start of the third lockdown.

The report’s author, Tal Elovitz, said, “Young people are doubly impacted. First, because their lives are based on casual employment with no job security. This was the work that was the first to close down at the start of the crisis. Second, because state support is based on age criteria that are blind to need. Young people below 28 are not entitled to the same unemployment benefits as people over 28.”

Research like this has been essential for advocacy campaigns toward a more equitable and inclusive economic response to the coronavirus, which includes more robust government relief for young people.

NIF’s Crisis Action Plan is NIF’s roadmap for ensuring an equitable and inclusive response to the coronavirus crisis has three central pillars: caring for marginalized groups, safeguarding democratic norms and institutions and bolstering Israel’s civil society. Because we know that the crisis is having a profound socio-economic impact, the Crisis Action Plan aims at ensuring an equitable economic relief program — not just equal access to public health services and information for marginalized groups. The Berl Katznelson Foundation has played a leading role in advocating for those equitable economic relief policies, including this recent study of the economic impact of this crisis on Israel’s young people.