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The personal savings rate and unemployment rate disagrees with your assertion. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PMSAVE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PMS

The personal savings rate and unemployment rate disagrees with your assertion. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PMSAVE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PMSAVE The actual reality is that the vast majority of people kept working but didn’t have enough ways to spend their money. Then the Congress started mailing massive checks to people regardless of need and the Fed cut rates. Surprise surprise… people spent every last dollar they had saved and borrowed 7x their income. On houses. On new and used cars. On electronics. On home improvement. On anything and everything they could find. And that all caused inflation. Unemployment was transitory and mostly recovered by the end of 2020. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE And now we shall pay the price.

gruez 4y ago
>Unemployment was transitory and mostly recovered by the end of 2020. That's cold comfort to the majority of americans that don't have enough savings to last to "the end of 2020".
- parkingrift 4y ago
  Majority? By the end of 2020 the unemployment rate had dropped to 7.5%. Evictions were illegal. Unemployment benefits were padded an extra $500 PER WEEK. Stimulus checks were sent. Almost no one was struggling to pay bills by the end of 2020. This is a made up sob story that didn't play out at all in reality.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/27/42-percent-of-americans-have-increased-their-credit-card-debt-during-covid-19.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/27/42-percent-of-americans-have... 10 million jobs were lost in the pandemic. Over 1/3 of US workers were forced out of their job. (https://fortune.com/2021/05/14/us-workers-changing-jobs-covid-pandemic-workforce/ https://fortune.com/2021/05/14/us-workers-changing-jobs-covi...). The jobs all come back now that things are reopened and people are starting to spend again, that was to be expected, but that doesn't mean people didn't struggle while they were unable to work and recovery takes time (https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/03/05/poll-49-of-americans-who-lost-pay-in-covid-pandemic-still-havent-recovered/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/03/05/poll-49-of-...). Stimulus money went mostly to help recover savings or pay off debt while lower income households depended on that money for essentials (https://abcnews.go.com/Business/majority-pandemic-stimulus-checks-savings-paying-off-debt/story?id=76944917 https://abcnews.go.com/Business/majority-pandemic-stimulus-c...) Wealthy people did alright during the pandemic because they couldn't spend the money they had. They had no choice but to save it and savings went up. Poor people were just plain screwed by the pandemic and are still recovering. In fact we haven't even seen the full fallout of that because evictions were delayed (not made illegal), and we still face a looming eviction/homelessness crisis which isn't what you'd expect if everyone was rolling in money thanks to the pandemic. (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/07/us/evictions-crisis-us.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/07/us/evictions-crisis-us.ht...) In fact homelessness is already on the rise which disproves that practically no one is struggling to pay their bills. (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/homelessness-surging-in-many-cities-in-amid-end-to-covid-assistance https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/homelessness-surging-in-...) How the pandemic played in out in reality was very different for the wealthy than it was for many many others.
    - parkingrift 4y ago
      You’re comically cherry picking facts straight out of headlines, but without even reading the articles. 1/3 of workers lost or switched jobs. Who cares about job switchers? As for the rest I already sent you the literal underlying fed data. Unemployment went down as fast as it went up. Savings rates blew up. Old debt decreased. Food insecurity went down. It was illegal to evict people for nonpayment. Your assertion of mass struggle did not exist in this reality, or any reality.

gruez 4y ago

>Unemployment was transitory and mostly recovered by the end of 2020. That's cold comfort to the majority of americans that don't have enough savings to last to "the end of 2020".

parkingrift 4y ago
Majority? By the end of 2020 the unemployment rate had dropped to 7.5%. Evictions were illegal. Unemployment benefits were padded an extra $500 PER WEEK. Stimulus checks were sent. Almost no one was struggling to pay bills by the end of 2020. This is a made up sob story that didn't play out at all in reality.
- autoexec 4y ago
  https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/27/42-percent-of-americans-have-increased-their-credit-card-debt-during-covid-19.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/27/42-percent-of-americans-have... 10 million jobs were lost in the pandemic. Over 1/3 of US workers were forced out of their job. (https://fortune.com/2021/05/14/us-workers-changing-jobs-covid-pandemic-workforce/ https://fortune.com/2021/05/14/us-workers-changing-jobs-covi...). The jobs all come back now that things are reopened and people are starting to spend again, that was to be expected, but that doesn't mean people didn't struggle while they were unable to work and recovery takes time (https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/03/05/poll-49-of-americans-who-lost-pay-in-covid-pandemic-still-havent-recovered/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/03/05/poll-49-of-...). Stimulus money went mostly to help recover savings or pay off debt while lower income households depended on that money for essentials (https://abcnews.go.com/Business/majority-pandemic-stimulus-checks-savings-paying-off-debt/story?id=76944917 https://abcnews.go.com/Business/majority-pandemic-stimulus-c...) Wealthy people did alright during the pandemic because they couldn't spend the money they had. They had no choice but to save it and savings went up. Poor people were just plain screwed by the pandemic and are still recovering. In fact we haven't even seen the full fallout of that because evictions were delayed (not made illegal), and we still face a looming eviction/homelessness crisis which isn't what you'd expect if everyone was rolling in money thanks to the pandemic. (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/07/us/evictions-crisis-us.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/07/us/evictions-crisis-us.ht...) In fact homelessness is already on the rise which disproves that practically no one is struggling to pay their bills. (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/homelessness-surging-in-many-cities-in-amid-end-to-covid-assistance https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/homelessness-surging-in-...) How the pandemic played in out in reality was very different for the wealthy than it was for many many others.
  - parkingrift 4y ago
    You’re comically cherry picking facts straight out of headlines, but without even reading the articles. 1/3 of workers lost or switched jobs. Who cares about job switchers? As for the rest I already sent you the literal underlying fed data. Unemployment went down as fast as it went up. Savings rates blew up. Old debt decreased. Food insecurity went down. It was illegal to evict people for nonpayment. Your assertion of mass struggle did not exist in this reality, or any reality.