The Chart of the Deal
“His chart showed that by April, the bottom quarter of wage earners, those making less than $27,000 a year, had lost almost 11 million jobs, more than three times the number lost by the top quarter, which earn more than $60,000 annually. By late June the gap had widened further, even though many businesses had reopened. In fact, the segment of Americans who are paid best had recovered almost all the jobs lost since the start of the pandemic. ‘The recession has essentially ended for high-income individuals,’ Chetty told Biden and Harris. Meanwhile, the bottom half of American workers represented almost 80% of the jobs still missing.” Before the pandemic, the economic divide was the one story that underpinned all others. And that divide is getting worse. Bloomberg: Harvard’s Chetty Finds Economic Carnage in Wealthiest ZIP Codes.
+ Pew: Economic Fallout From COVID-19 Continues To Hit Lower-Income Americans the Hardest.