30 Charts That Show How Covid Changed Everything

March 9, 2025

In March 2020

Covid-19 broke the charts.

Decades from now, the pandemic will be visible in the historical data of nearly anything measurable today: an unmistakable spike, dip or jolt that officially began for Americans five years ago this week.

Here’s an incomplete collection of charts that capture that break — across the economy, health care, education, work, family life and more.

Three million Americans filed for unemployment benefits in the first week, then six million the next, one of the earliest shockwaves to ripple through the economy.

Those who still had a job often stayed put. Only later did tens of millions of people quit their jobs for better ones, in the “great resignation.”

Overnight, Americans started stockpiling groceries and stopped ordering from restaurants. (The two have traded places since.)

Cars stayed off the roads. Demand for oil cratered. On one day in April, the value of oil fell below $0, a sign of a world turned upside down.

Americans drove less and gave up flying almost completely. It took years for flying to return to prepandemic levels.

At home, our lives changed, but not necessarily for the better.

The pandemic gave many people more time at home and a chance to rethink their relationship to work.

But it also left them more alone, detached and disconnected — changes that have lingered.

Americans hunkered down and bought a lot of alcohol — a billion dollars more.

We started spending an extra hour and a half at home each day, on average. At first it was out of necessity, but later, perhaps, out of habit…

… but we weren’t hosting more dinner parties. We were just more alone.

One thing the revolution in remote and hybrid work enabled: Mothers of the youngest children flooded into the work force, adding to a record number of American women with paying jobs.

And more people chose to work for themselves, submitting far more business applications than before the pandemic.

For a while, things were weird.

For many, the start of the pandemic was like going through the looking glass. We had to learn to live a little differently — to do things for ourselves, and sometimes just to fill the time.

It was a time of contradictions, and of trends that seemed to signal bigger and more permanent changes than actually happened.

We chopped off our own locks…

… and brought home new friends.

Businesses that catered to Americans’ new lives at home soared in value, then fell back to earth.

We shopped online more often …

… and watched more TV.

People flocked to the Great Smoky Mountains, within driving distance for many Americans. Visits to the remote Grand Canyon fell off.

Marriage planning became harder. (But couples caught up.)

Even crime found strange new patterns. Murder surged, but with more people at home, thefts dipped before rising again. Crime has since subsided, though its memory hasn’t.

We glimpsed a world that could be.

The scale of our response to Covid had many big — if temporary — effects on society. In our relative stillness, we polluted less and spread fewer viruses.

We gave a lot of money to people, especially to children.

And then things went back to normal.

Annual global carbon dioxide emissions had the largest fall on record. But they bounced back the next year, resuming their steady climb.

With some help from masks, social distancing and fewer crowded gatherings, we beat the flu — but just for a season.

Stimulus checks put thousands of dollars in Americans’ pockets… for a while.

Spending on children surged: in the form of tax breaks, and subsidies for health care, food and education. But that, too, didn’t last.

The scale of spending by the government most likely spared Americans from even more suffering — it also caused the national debt to soar.

We left a world we might not get back to.

Many things that we took for granted never returned to their former levels, with no guarantee they ever will. The pandemic took a hammer to society and left us struggling to climb back from shutdowns, from fear and from illness.

It can be easy, in the bustle of our daily lives, to forget — or look away from — how huge the disruption was half a decade ago.

The numbers will be there to remind us.

The new geography of work — along with, perhaps, new discomfort with crowded spaces and fears about crime — has changed Americans’ relationship to public transportation…

… at the same time that supply-chain troubles and demand for the open road has left used cars 30 percent more expensive than prepandemic…

… at the same time that many people wanted to move, with fewer houses available to buy, inflaming the housing crisis.

The national measles, mumps and rubella vaccination rate has steadily declined, driven down by missed doctors’ appointments and growing mistrust in science and vaccines.

Students fell behind by around half a year of learning that they may never fully recover.

The number of people reporting a disability soared. Many Americans struggled with long Covid and reported cognitive issues like “brain fog.”

Ultimately, Covid’s biggest impact has been one of immense loss.

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30 Charts That Show How Covid Changed Everything

In March 2020

We’ve updated our terms

More Than 3 Million Americans Lost Their Jobs Last Week. See Your State.

All of Those Quitters? They’re at Work.

7 Ways the Pandemic Has Changed How We Shop for Food

What the Negative Price of Oil Is Telling Us

Air Travel Is Already Back to Normal in Some Places. Here’s Where.

Stuck at Home, People Are Splurging on Wine and Spirits

A Nation of Homebodies

We Want Our Friends Back! (But Which Ones?)

The ‘Silver Lining to the Pandemic’ for Working Mothers

Pandemic Start-Ups Are Thriving, and Helping to Fuel the Economy

Foster Pets Are Finding Homes With Quarantined Americans

Pandemic Stocks Have Become Passé

Americans Keep Clicking to Buy, Minting New Online Shopping Winners

Coronavirus Ended the Screen-Time Debate. Screens Won.

Get Outside and Safely Visit a National Park

It’s a Boom Year for Brides and Grooms

Murders Surged in the Pandemic. Now in Many Cities That Surge Is Gone.

Emissions Declines Will Set Records This Year. But It’s Not Good News.

The Flu Vanished During Covid. What Will Its Return Look Like?

Where $5 Trillion in Pandemic Stimulus Money Went

Spending on Children Surged During the Pandemic. It Didn’t Last.

Even Progressives Now Worry About the Federal Debt

How Coronavirus Has Changed New York City Transit, in One Chart

‘The Market Is Insane’: Cars Are Sold Even Before They Hit the Lot

The Housing Shortage Isn’t Just a Coastal Crisis Anymore

Childhood Vaccination Rates Were Falling Even Before the Rise of R.F.K. Jr.

Students Are Making a ‘Surprising’ Rebound From Pandemic Closures. But Some May Never Catch Up.

Can’t Think, Can’t Remember: More Americans Say They’re in a Cognitive Fog

Remembering the 100,000 Lives Lost to Coronavirus in America