Several months ago, if someone had told you that the U.S. would pass a $2 trillion stimulus package while multiple states issued stay-at-home orders, you probably wouldn’t have believed it.
The COVID-19 pandemic has turned our lives upside down. It’s also taught us many things. Funny things, like the fact that your mute button is very important when you’re conducting conference calls at home while also caring for a toddler, or that people tend to buy tremendous amounts of toilet paper when panic shopping. Sad things, as well, like the fact that social distancing is especially devastating when it means you can’t wish your grandmother a happy birthday in person.
More than anything else, the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that nobody knows what tomorrow will bring.
A few months ago, you probably worried about a lot of things: jobs, money, relationships – all the normal stuff. But you probably didn’t worry that a pandemic would kill thousands of people, overwhelm our hospitals, send unemployment rates skyrocketing, and leave us wishing for the good old days when we could hang out with our friends at the office. Yet that’s where we are.
Hopefully tomorrow will be better. The pandemic, like everything else in life, has to end eventually.
But tomorrow will bring new challenges as well as new joys. The pandemic has shown us just how vulnerable we are.
According to CareerBuilder, 78 percent of U.S. workers live paycheck to paycheck. These workers depend on their paycheck to survive. When something threatens that paycheck, it threatens everything.
And it doesn’t take anything as extreme as a pandemic or crashing economy. Individuals lose their ability to earn a paycheck every day when they become too ill or injured to work. According to the Social Security Administration, more than one in four of today’s 20-year-olds will become disabled before reaching retirement age.
None of us can predict the future – but we can still prepare for it. Disability insurance provides essential protection for anyone who depends on a paycheck. Be well, share this article with everyone you know and spread the word about paycheck protection!
