HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Long lines formed at pandemic food relief drive-thrus and at Pandemic Unemployment Assistance processing centers. But there were also long lines at Ross Dress For Less, Home Depot, other stores and banks.
People experienced, saw, heard and read heartbreaking stories of deaths, isolation, despair, financial hardships and suicides.
But they also celebrated humanity at its best — the front-liners who risked their lives fighting an invisible enemy, and neighbors who opened their hearts, their doors and their wallets to help others survive the health and financial crisis.
They were happening at the same time, showing two different faces of Guam’s economy and humanity at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
Guam’s economy declined by 27% to 28% in 2020, according to University of Guam researchers.
It’s “the year from hell,” business leaders said.
Others, however, said it was also a year of turning challenges into opportunities and realizations that go beyond economics.
Federal government to the rescue
Guam’s economy would have been in much worse shape had it not received more than $1 billion in federal pandemic relief and recovery dollars in 2020, on top of about $1 billion in military, federal and other construction spending.
Some relief took a little while to reach its intended recipients, as GovGuam navigated federal guidelines in implementing the programs.
About $2 billion more in pandemic recovery, military and other federal spending is expected in 2021.
These federal dollars, along with a moratorium on evictions, have been keeping Guamanians from hunger, homelessness and a deeper financial mess.
Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero’s administration has been both praised and criticized for its handling of the pandemic.
The governor herself caught Covid-19, but recovered well.
At a time when the virus was raging and congregating in large groups was prohibited, some Guam voters had to go to the polls to vote up to four times.
“Even the best-laid plans couldn’t account for a global pandemic,” the governor told the Guam Chamber of Commerce in a Jan. 27 speech that may well have been a prelude to her State of the Island Address.
GovGuam talked about the anticipated arrival of more federal dollars to keep the economy afloat, while other jurisdictions have prepared for and executed austerity measures to be on the safe side.
While more than 30,000 private sector workers were negatively impacted by the pandemic, they got or are still getting PUA and other federal unemployment benefits of more than half a billion dollars.
GovGuam workers never missed a payroll, nor experienced work-hour cuts or furloughs.
Businesses were impacted, but most got help in some form or another. The local government used federal money to assist small businesses, outside of the Paycheck Protection Program.
Many businesses closed temporarily or for good, but many others saw opportunities to start new businesses.
Pandemic or not, military-buildup-related construction has been moving forward. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts were awarded and are in the pipeline.
Guam has seen 133 Covid-19-related deaths, some 7,740 officially reported positive cases and two rounds of lockdowns.
But it also is now among the leading places on American soil in the rate of vaccinating its population against the coronavirus.
Cost of living
Guam families have paid about 3% more for food, medical care and most basic goods and services since Leon Guerrero assumed office in January 2019.
But the greater increases were not during the pandemic.
They were mostly between the first quarter of 2019, when the new administration came in, and right before Covid-19 started wreaking havoc on Guam’s way of life.
For the most part, the cost of food and other goods has been stable during the pandemic, based on the consumer price index between the first quarter of 2020 and the fourth quarter of 2020.
The most notable increase, however, is the cost of education and communication during the pandemic.
This may have been attributed to the increased use of telecommunications to connect in the time of forced isolation, social distancing and lockdowns.
Early on in the state of emergency, the governor signed a stronger anti-price-gouging law and placed a moratorium on evictions.
When Leon Guerrero assumed her post, Guam was still reeling from the $86 million negative impacts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
A business privilege tax increase generated $77.8 million more in 2019 but GovGuam was still more than $8 million short.
Then the pandemic hit. It exacerbated the shortfall by another $100 million and dashed any hope of beating a record-breaking 1.63 million tourist arrivals in fiscal 2019.
Fortunately, despite the Covid-19 public health state of emergency, most of the basic goods and services that people rely on have remained stable and increased only by 0.5% between the first and fourth quarters of 2020.
And if one’s wondering about the power of the dollar today, it has shrunk to 51 cents compared to its purchasing power in 1996.
While there was some shortage of toilet paper, sanitizing products and gardening items in the beginning of the lockdown, the shortage was short-lived.
Shoppers wait in a long line as Ross Dress for Less at Guam Premier Outlets in Tamuning resumes operations in this Sept. 2020 file photo.
Photo by Haruo Simion/The Guam Daily Post
