In particular they blamed the souped-up unemployment checks for the nation’s sluggish economic recovery.

But a vocal subset of Americans seemed troubled that the government was doing so much to help. Swift government action didn’t just prevent economic disaster it helped to cut child poverty by more than half.Īfter years of inaction, the United States had finally made a major dent in the poverty rate. It fell for people who lived in cities and those who lived in rural areas. Poverty fell for all racial and ethnic groups. The US economy lost millions of jobs during the pandemic, but there were roughly 16 million fewer Americans in poverty in 2021 than in 2018. (In August 2020 the government reduced the bonuses to $300 a week.)īecause of the generous unemployment benefits-alongside stimulus checks, rental assistance, an expanded Child Tax Credit, and other forms of relief-poverty did not increase during the worst economic downturn in nearly a century. For four months, unemployed Americans received $600 a week on top of their regular stipend, nearly tripling the average amount of the benefit. It expanded the time window in which laid-off workers could collect unemployment and, in a rare recognition of the inadequacy of the benefit, added supplementary payments. The federal government responded to this free fall with bold and immediate relief. During the week of March 16, 2020, more than 3.3 million Americans did.

During the worst week of the Great Recession of the late Aughts, 661,000 Americans filed for unemployment insurance. Between February and April 2020, the unemployment rate doubled-then it doubled again. Social distancing protocols caused businesses to shutter, and millions of Americans lost their jobs. Three years ago, the Covid-19 pandemic struck the United States, and the economy sputtered in the direction of collapse.

Matthew desmond poverty by america