South DSM News

COVID-19 is not just wreaking havoc on people, but businesses in Des Moines and all around the world are bearing the weight of an economic fallout brought on by the killer disease.

Brewery owner R.J. Tursi resorted to delivering cases of alcohol to customers after Gov. Kim Reynolds ordered all bars and restaurants to shutter in light of increasing coronavirus concerns, the Des Moines Register reported. 

Tursi’s situation is part of what American University economic history professor Gabriel Mathy told the Des Moines Register: “a unique financial downturn.”

And never before has the U.S. economy been at the mercy of raging pandemic like it is now.

With his place of business closed for the foreseeable future, Tursi is without what the Register reported is his biggest profit draw: a glass of beer sold at the bar. Even if it is okay to reopen, he knows hordes of customers will not be lining up at the doors just yet.

Several businesses have resorted to stepping out of their comfort zones to stay afloat financially. Some, like Tursi, turn to delivering products and goods to customers. Others turn to the internet and literally set up shop online.

Proprietress Jamie Nicolino summed up the new economic normal as being “like the survival of the fittest.”

It remains to be seen how small businesses as a whole emerge out of the novel coronavirus outbreak. If history is an indication, it is likely they would be on the wrong end of a downturn.

The Federal Reserve reported that 70% of small businesses have debt while JPMorgan Chase & Co. determined that 50% are able to pay just one month’s worth of expenses.

Iowa State University economist Peter Orazem said that workers tend to do better than their employers in times of financial uncertainty because the former can tap into unemployment insurance, as well as find new employment elsewhere.