On election night, Democratic campaign consultants may have been wondering, “Where did all these voters come from?” But unless the next Congress sets a legislative course over the next few months, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi may soon be wondering, “Where did all the voters go?”
The incoming Biden administration will need to navigate an extremely rough economic path ahead. Congress has struggled to reach an agreement for another round of stimulus to provide emergency relief for families and businesses. Now they must act before the “dark winter” ahead further deteriorates the economic recovery.
Carter Pape has covered cybersecurity, financial crime and emerging technology for American Banker since January 2022.
Pape, reporting from Sacramento, California, connects technical complexities to their practical consequences. He examines how cybercriminals target and infiltrate banks and how the technologies reshaping the world (such as AI and quantum computing) create new risks for banks and their customers.
Pape's work has earned recognition at the regional and national levels, having earned him an award and award finalist recognitions from the American Society of Business Publication Editors and SIIA.
Highlights of Pape's work include:
- No longer optional: Cyber risk oversight for boards, which examined the expanding liability exposure facing bank directors as regulators raise expectations for cyber governance;
- Inside a sophisticated, foiled cyber-heist targeting ATMs, an account of a coordinated attack on bank cash infrastructure and the defenses that stopped it;
- The promise and perils of QR codes in banking, which explored how a ubiquitous consumer technology became a vector for financial fraud.
- How quantum computers work, and how banks can use them, which broke down the physics and engineering of quantum computation and assessed the realistic near- and long-term implications for the banking industry
- Main Street banks can avoid Wall Street's WhatsApp fines. Here's how. This article explained how community banks could navigate SEC enforcement around personal device usage for work communications.
Pape's broader coverage at American Banker addresses data breaches, fraud prevention, regulatory compliance, artificial intelligence in financial services and the evolution of digital banking.
Before joining American Banker in January 2022, Pape spent three years as a reporter at The Times-Independent in Moab, Utah, where he was one of four full-time journalists covering a county of 10,000 people.
Pape reported on public lands, local government, housing and more. He also rebuilt the publication's website from the ground up, earning the Utah Press Association's Best Website award in 2019 for the redesign.
Pape's reporting on Moab won recognition from the Utah Press Association for excellence in government and politics reporting (first place) as well as general news (second place) and education coverage (second place).
Pape holds a degree in mathematics from North Carolina State University. At NC State he became news editor of the student newspaper, Technician, to get a break from the analytical and technical work of mathematical proofs. The experience inspired him to pursue a career in journalism.
Alongside his seven years as a journalist, Pape brings more than a decade of programming experience, having interned as a software developer for companies including IBM. He continues to regularly tinker with Python, Docker and shell scripting in his free time.
Daniel Wolfe is editor-in-chief of Digital Insurance.
Most recently, he was director of data services at Arizent, which publishes DI and American Banker. In this role he managed the company's editorial use of automation and AI, with the mission of expanding quality data journalism and products across all brands.
Previously Daniel headed American Banker's payments and credit union coverage, and before that he was editor-in-chief of PaymentsSource, a sister publication that combined with American Banker in 2021. Prior to that, Daniel held roles at American Banker including tech and risk management editor; technology, cards and payments editor; and technology reporter. Throughout his career, Daniel has taken a central role in hosting leading industry conferences including Payments Forum, Card Forum and PayThink. He has appeared on Yahoo! Finance and received the American Society of Business Publication Editors' national silver award for sustainability reporting in 2024 for his coverage of the credit card industry's environmental impact.
He has a master's degree in print journalism from Boston University's College of Communication and a bachelor's degree in English from SUNY Binghamton.
Dysart is an Internet speaker and business consultant based in Manhattan. Reach him at (646) 233-4089.
Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the economy, decreased at an annual rate of 32.9 percent in the second quarter of 2020, followed by a surged of 33.1 percent in the third quarter, in part due to earlier rounds of fiscal stimulus when businesses were offered Economic Injury Disaster Loans and forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans, and individuals received direct payments and extended unemployment benefits.
Economic experts believe the current surge is not enough to stop continued losses incurred by various segments of economy.
“While the strong bounce back in activity from the initial devastation of COVID-19 was heartening, the recovery thus far has been highly uneven, and the path ahead is highly uncertain,” said Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard in a speech last month at the Society of Professional Economists annual online conference.
This highly uneven and uncertain bounce indicates the prospect of a K-shaped recovery, where some sectors continue to recover, while others see a steady decline.
The new stimulus package must focus on the sectors facing difficulties ahead to avoid colossal damage and massive layoffs.
According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, approximately 4 million small businesses — 13 percent of America’s 31 million smallest employers — have now exhausted their PPP loans, and many face permanent closure without further assistance.
According to the National Restaurant Association, the restaurant industry will lose $240 billion. U.S airlines may be forced to furlough 75,000 pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and other workers by the end of 2020 if Congress doesn’t act.
States and municipalities are now on verge of extreme shortfalls due to declines in tax revenues and rises in additional costs. Local governments that fund and operate public school systems will need more funding. “The average school district will face $1.8 million, or $485 per student, in additional costs for disinfectants, personal protective equipment and other preparations to bring students into classrooms this year,” according to the Association of School Business Officials.
The Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances indicates that cash-strained households will continue to suffer as a result of continued unemployment and reduced working hours. The CARES Act did support these households either through direct payments or enhanced unemployment benefits this year, but the financial security of these households will depend on whether unemployment benefits will be extended or supplemented next year.
Therefore, it is imperative for Congress to ensure that the recovery reaches those who have been disproportionately affected. A targeted fiscal support can turn a K-shaped recovery into a broad-based, inclusive recovery to eliminate shortfalls in employment and provide a better outcome overall.
