Public sentiment and opinion regarding the CARES Act.

ABSTRACT

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was the largest stimulus package in US history. In this paper, I look into whether public sentiment improved in response to the CARES Act, and analyze public opinion regarding the CARES Act, implementing a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model. The sentiment analysis results indicate a significant improvement of public sentiment following the announcement of the CARES Act, which fades away after a week but improves again as the date to receive the first stimulus check approaches. The topic modeling results highlight support toward certain programs and some criticism of the CARES Act.