Michael R. Strain, Columnist

How the New Normal Will Look Like the Old Normal

Covid didn’t transform human nature, which means that the more some things have changed, the more they’ll stay the same.

July 9, 2021 at 2:00 PM UTC

By Michael R. Strain

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

They’ll be back.
Photographer: Sean Proctor/Bloomberg

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As the Covid-19 pandemic recedes across much of the U.S., the difference between the lasting and temporary changes that it wrought are starting to emerge. Hype and wishful thinking have contributed to predictions that are likely to prove wrong; just because a change was striking or desirable doesn’t mean it will stick.

One way to think about the changes is to analyze the balance of power between competing interests — employers and employees, buyers and sellers, doctors and patients, among many others. Another is to ask which changes were already underway before the pandemic and see whether those are likely to accelerate or stall.