Title: How The $600 Pandemic Unemployment Payment Upended Household Economics : NPR
Headings: $600 A Week: Poverty Remedy Or Job Slayer?
Analysis
$600 A Week: Poverty Remedy Or Job Slayer?
The Coronavirus Crisis
'Tsunami' Of Evictions Feared As Extra $600 Unemployment Payments End
'I make less money' working than those who lost their jobs
The Coronavirus Crisis
As 'Hero' Pay Ends, Essential Workers Wonder What They Are Worth
When the unemployment office is competition for business owners
Universal basic income is here. Should it stay?
Coronavirus Live Updates
The End Of $600 Unemployment Benefits Will Hit Millions Of Households And The Economy
So who's getting the $600?
The economy now relies on it
Corrections July 28, 2020
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Content: The payment that came into being via a hastily passed bill was sudden and unexpected, like the virus itself. Its immediate outcomes, however, are leading economists to assess the income gap. Last year, when Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang proposed a payment of $1,000 a month to every adult in America for losing jobs to technological advances such as automation, his rival 2020 candidates laughed at his proposal. Yang called it universal basic income, the premise of which is to alleviate poverty and stagnant wages for those who lose jobs for no fault of their own, while providing economic stimulus to American businesses. And yet, within months, the coronavirus did exactly that. Jobs disappeared for tens of millions of Americans. In response, the U.S. government mailed out stimulus checks to most households of $1,200, plus $500 for each child, and then added the $600 enhanced unemployment benefit. And just like that, the coronavirus brought universal basic income into the hands of tens of millions of Americans. Coronavirus Live Updates
The End Of $600 Unemployment Benefits Will Hit Millions Of Households And The Economy
Now, at least two studies show that America's poverty rate hasn't worsened significantly, despite the onslaught of the worst recession since the Great Depression. That's because this additional payment is keeping many low-income families afloat and is even allowing them to spend a little more than they normally would.