I think the second graph in this story is perhaps answering the 'wrong' question. Yes the richest 20% received the most from these programs. But the top 20% usu

I think the second graph in this story is perhaps answering the 'wrong' question. Yes the richest 20% received the most from these programs. But the top 20% usually receive the most. The rescue plan was not advertised as the dawn of a new era of redistribution. It was an expensive bandaid to try to stabilize a bad situation. It wasn't _trying_ to give more to the poor. I think the right graph would compare rescue plan funds received by each income quantile against the actual income distribution. The better question it illustrates is roughly, was the inequality in the rescue plan funds distribution greater or less than the general income inequality? In particular, if ordinarily roughly >50% of the income goes to the top 20% (I think that's true), and the graph in the article shows that maybe a bit less than 30% of the rescue plan funds went to the top 20% (>600B / 2.2T), then yes we should regard the rescue plan as benefitting the rich, but to a lesser degree than like, the whole rest of the economy. If you want to complain about ways that we needlessly hand money to the rich, shouldn't we start with the ways which are most unequal? How about the fact that we distinguish capital gains from earned income? How about the mortgage interest deduction? https://www.statista.com/statistics/203247/shares-of-household-income-of-quintiles-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/203247/shares-of-househo... https://www.brookings.edu/?simplechart=top-quintile-receives-most-of-the-benefits-from-the-mortgage-interest-deduction https://www.brookings.edu/?simplechart=top-quintile-receives... See fig 5 https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/substantial-income-of-wealthy-households-escapes-annual-taxation-or-enjoys https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/substantial-income...