PSC Research Professor, Dean Yang comments in the LA Times story about the World Bank projection of sharp decrease in immigrants ability to remit money home during COVID-19 crisis. Historically, remittances have helped developing countries weather shocks, such as natural disasters or civil unrest, said Yang, who has studied the flow of remittances to the Philippines. When a prolonged drought gutted the Philippines’ agricultural sector in the 1990s, Yang said, families with relatives working abroad were able to replace about 60% of income lost to the crisis through remittances.But “this is an unusual crisis,” he said, “in that the whole world is suffering.”

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