In a few days, 30 million Americans will lose the $600 boost in unemployment insurance they’ve depended on every week. What happens next?Annie Lowrey, staff writer and author of Give People Money, joins to explain. Listen here:Subscribe to Social Distance on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or another podcast platform to receive new episodes as soon as they’re published.What follows is an edited and condensed transcript of their conversation.

Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox.SHUTTERSTOCK / THE ATLANTIC1. The pandemic, and its aftereffects, could stifle U.S. population growth.The country’s birth rate, for example, will likely decline. “Between births and deaths, we’re talking about more than half a million people missing from the U.S.

ESO / Bohn et alAstronomers have a saying about how difficult it is to see a distant planet outside of our own solar system: It’s like spotting a firefly next to a lighthouse.Stars are so luminous that they block our view of planets that might be orbiting nearby, so astronomers have to work around them. They use special instruments on telescopes to block the light coming from these celestial beacons. With the glare gone, they can detect something else: heat radiating off of planets.

Three variables determine the fluctuations of a country’s population: births, deaths, and migration flows. The coronavirus pandemic is disrupting all three.The forces that have begun acting on America’s population are dramatic departures from the norm. Every year for the past 100 years, the population of the United States has grown. During that time, though, its growth rate has slowed as birth rates have fallen.