“If you make $40,000 or less,” the chairman of the Federal Reserve said today, “you had a 40% chance of losing your job in April or May.” But that’s only half the story. A lot more people than that lost at least part of their income. Here’s the breakdown by income level:
The poor suffered the most, of course. Here it is by race and ethnicity:
Here it is by size of household:
Men and women lost income equally, and there wasn’t a very big difference by age either. Generally, the poorer, sicker, and least educated—that is, the ones who could least afford it in the first place—are the ones who suffered the most.
This is why it’s so appalling to watch Republicans in Congress screw around with people’s lives by slow-walking the latest coronavirus rescue bill. But the poor have never been their constituents, after all, so they just don’t care about them much.
