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28 May 2020 – Articles

Nordic Summit 2020: What will COVID-19 mean to the forthcoming US election?

Jakob Funk Kirkegaard, Senior Fellow at Peterson Institute for International Economics shares his view on COVID-19’s impact on the US society. Nordic Summit is a recurring annual event for Danske Bank’s corporate and institutional clients.

Through Nordic Summit 2020 - this year transformed into a series of virtual sessions - Danske Bank sheds light on the current COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences for the global economy and the society as a whole.

The session is moderated by Jakob Ekholdt Christensen, Head of International Macro and Emerging Market Research, and Thomas Harr, Global Head of FI&C Research at Danske Bank. 


Watch a recap


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Key-takeaways from Funk Kierkegaard

  • There are real social and economic fallouts from the lockdown measures. A new survey shows that 40% of all households earning less than $40,000 in the United States (roughly a third of the total population) have now lost their main source of household income.

    Another survey shows that approximately a quarter of American households felt that they had too little money to purchase the food that they would like to purchase.

  • We are dependent on the Congress to continue to appropriate the money to save those people. This is not as easy as it was earlier in the pandemic, as a number of Republican senators are against spending more money.

  • Regarding the possible re-election of Donald Trump, there has  - since his election - been a very significant increase in "unthusiasm" on the Democratic side - they truly and viscerally hate him. It is therefore a unlikely scenario that Trump will be re-elected, as the election in 2016 was also much more Hillary Clinton that lost rather than Donald Trump who won. 

About Funk Kierkegaard

  • The Petersen Institute is an independent non-profit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to strengthening prosperity and human welfare in the global economy through expert analysis and practical policy solutions.

  • Jacob Funk Kirkegaard has been associated with the Institute since 2002. Before joining the Institute, he worked with the Danish Ministry of Defense, the United Nations in Iraq, and in the private financial sector. He is a graduate of the Danish Army's Special School of Intelligence and Linguistics with the rank of first lieutenant; the University of Aarhus in Aarhus, Denmark; the Columbia University in New York; and received his PhD from Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies.
     
  • Jacob Funk Kirkegaard is co-editor of Transatlantic Economic Challenges in an Era of Growing Multipolarity (2012), author of The Accelerating Decline in America's High-Skilled Workforce: Implications for Immigration Policy (2007), and co-author of US Pension Reform: Lessons from Other Countries (2009) among others. 

More on Funk Kierkegaard on LinkedIn

Nordic Summit - what you need to know

  • A recurring annual event for Danske Bank’s corporate and institutional clients, where we share a Nordic perspective on the most critical topics and megatrends.
  • The event includes a series of keynote speeches and panel debates with leading international experts, politicians and industry leaders on these subjects.
  • Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, it was decided to transform this year’s event into a series of virtual sessions all focusing on COVID-19. We are making the insights from the day available for everyone here on our website.