Most Republicans say the American Recovery Plan isn’t necessary, that the economy is on its way back without additional intervention. They should read this report from the Associated Press: (emphasis by Wrongo)
“In a stark sign of the economic inequality that has marked the pandemic recession and recovery, Americans as a whole are now earning the same amount in wages and salaries that they did before the virus struck — even with nearly 9 million fewer people working.”
AP says that Americans earned $9.66 trillion in wages and salaries in February 2020 but by April, that figure had shrunk by 10%. It recovered to $9.67 trillion in December, last year. That’s just wages and salaries; it doesn’t include unemployment payments, Social Security, or other benefit payments.
Of the nearly 9 million jobs that have been eliminated by the pandemic, 40% have been in restaurants, bars, hotels, arts, and entertainment. Retailers have lost nearly 400,000 jobs while many low-paying jobs, such as nursing home attendants and home health care aides, have also been laid off.
Another reason why job losses have had zero impact on the nation’s total pay is that so many of the affected employees work part time. The average work week in the industry that includes hotels, restaurants and bars is less than 26 hours. The average for all industries is nearly 35 hours. The New York Fed’s research shows how concentrated the job losses have been. For people making less than $30,000 a year, employment fell by 14% as of December. For those earning more than $85,000, it has actually risen slightly.
The wage and salary data also help explain the big stock market gains, which have been led by companies whose products are being purchased by higher-income Americans, such as Apple iPads, Peloton bikes, or Amazon’s online shopping.
So clearly, the bottom 30% need help. Too bad Republicans can’t see it. After not voting for the Recovery Plan, they introduced a bill to repeal the estate tax. If it passed, it would provide a $1.7 trillion tax break to millionaires and billionaires! On to cartoons.
Why they wouldn’t vote for it:
It’s no longer one America:
Still, some GOP’ers are touting a stimulus they didn’t vote for:
It’s a question of priorities:
Birds of a feather:
How the story has changed:
The fact that we cannot target aid better is that our unemployment systems are broken. Even in states like NJ where the government has not tried to make the system fail, the system is outdated. But in many states the government have used an inadequate system to stifle the unemployed – so as to avoid having to raise taxes. Florida is reportedly an example. In fact data on who is unemployed should be given immediately by employers as a data feed and is we had that, we could target aid precisely. Special tools could be made to cover both the self employed and gig workers. Absent, we just throw large amounts of money to the winds.
I am not saying this to make a case against the stimulus. Rather the point is that, having made getting help difficult, when help is really needed, we are screwed.
I’m baffled by the height of the ceilings of the stimulus checks. How can $150,000+ for joint filers and $75,000+ for single be justified and how where these levels arrived at?