We Are Primed for Recovery From the COVID-19 Recession

Between the dex and the news, I don’t really trust either my emotions or my judgment for the time being. So instead of saying anything about the appalling news of the past couple of days I’m going to bury myself in charts. I’ve got two for you, and for what it’s worth, they represent genuinely good news. First off, here are personal income and personal expenditures in April:

It’s no surprise that spending is down, but you might be surprised that income is up. How can that be? The answer is simple: the coronavirus stimulus bill sent everyone a $1,200 check and funded a $600 per week bonus for everyone getting unemployment insurance. The result of this is that many of the working poor saw their incomes go up even though they lost their jobs. This in turn pushed up the average.

But if income is up and expenditures are down, this must mean that savings have skyrocketed:

The good news here is conditional. If we get COVID-19 under control so that jobs return and people aren’t afraid to go out and spend money, we have a tremendous amount of savings on the sideline just waiting to be spent. And keep in mind that this is only through April. We can expect the savings rate to stay at a high level in May and June.

This is plenty to power a recovery from the artificial recession we’re in now. But only if the pandemic is under control. Fiscally, we’ve done the right thing. Epidemiologically, the jury is still out.

UPDATE: I originally showed these figures on an annual basis. I’ve changed both charts to show everything on a monthly basis.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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