On Thu, 28 Jan 2021 08:30:54 -0500, Keyser Söze
wrote:


The end of 2020 brought the sharpest rise in the U.S. poverty rate since
the 1960s, according to a study released Monday.

Economists Bruce Meyer from the University of Chicago and James Sullivan
of the University of Notre Dame found that the poverty rate increased by
2.4 percentage points during the latter half of 2020 as the U.S.
continued to suffer the economic impacts of COVID-19.

That percentage-point rise is nearly double the largest annual increase
in poverty since the 1960s. This means an additional 8 million people
nationwide are now considered poor. Moreover, the poverty rate for Black
Americans is estimated to have jumped by 5.4 percentage points, or by
2.4 million individuals.

The scholars’ findings put the rate at 11.8 percent in December. While
poverty is down from readings of more than 15 percent a decade earlier,
the new estimates suggest that the annual Census Bureau tally due in
September will be higher than the last official, pre-pandemic level of
10.5 percent in 2019.

Black Americans were more than twice as likely to be poor than their
white counterparts in December — an improvement from the summer months
when they were nearly three times more apt to live in poverty — but an
increase from before the pandemic, when the differential was under two.

https://tinyurl.com/yyrfjnfx

Don't think Covid had anything to do with that do you and the
shutdowns couple with unemployment that paid more than some people
make working helped goose that number.

It may stay bad too because working from home may put a lot of those
low wage workers out of work forever. You don't need as many parking
lot attendants, custodial help, restaurant help and the other "little
people" you take for granted when you are walking around in your
pinstripe suit.
I bet more workers and more companies will not want "the office" back.

We have condos down here selling the idea that "work from home" in New
York might be work from here. They show yuppies sitting on their
balcony looking out over the beach or estuary, drinking a latte and
typing on their laptop.