The Ghost of Sabotage Future

By Paul Krugman, The New York Times

24 December 20

This winter’s economy won’t be as grim as feared, but what about after?

he not-a-stimulus deal Congress reached over the weekend — seriously, this is about disaster relief, not boosting the economy — didn’t come a moment too soon. Actually, it came much too late: Crucial aid to many unemployed Americans and businesses expired months ago. But now some of that aid is back, for a while.

True, the aid will be less generous than it was in the spring and summer: $300 a week in enhanced unemployment benefits, rather than $600. But because the workers still out of a job as a result of the pandemic tended to have low earnings even before the coronavirus struck, they will, on average, be receiving something like 85 percent of their pre-Covid-19 income.

By the way, although the one-time $600 checks to a much wider group of Americans are getting much of the media coverage, they account for only a small percentage of the overall expense and are far less crucial than the unemployment benefits to keeping families afloat.

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