Impact of COVID-19 Outbreaks at US Meatpacking Plants on Consumer Preference and Willingness to Pay for Safe Essential Worker Conditions: Evidence from Discrete Choice Survey Analysis

As we are in the midst of an unprecedented global pandemic, supply chains in nearly every industry broke, seemingly overnight. Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, Meatpacking plants were considered to be one of the most difficult and dangerous jobs a person could perform. Workers have complained for decades about horrid working conditions, low pay, and limited medical treatment for workplace injuries. In addition, Zoonotic pandemics, epidemics, and endemics are nothing new in our global society ? Nevertheless, the emergence of these new diseases and viruses are perilous and usually spread rapidly, with meat processing facilities being uniquely primed for their spread. ∗The author is an undergraduate in the Major of Environmental Economics and Policy, as well as a Sustainability Minor, both offered through the Rausser College of Natural Resources(RCNR) at the University of California, Berkeley. Special Thanks: I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Prof. Sofia VillasBoas for her expert advising, patience, encouragement, support, and enthusiasm throughout this process. I would also like to thank my colleague, Nica Campbell, for helping me to believe this would be possible. In addition, I would like to thank Prof. David Card, Maya Samuels-Fair the UCB Dlab, as well as the participants of the U. C. Berkeley Honors Symposium, for their insightful discussion and suggestions. I also thank the Giannini Foundation and the RCNR’s Sponsored Projects for Undergraduate Research(SPUR) Program for financial support in the survey implementation.