And the poor get poorer

摘要

AT FIRST, A remarkable thing happened in the midst of an epidemic and the lockdown-induced recession. Poverty declined in America. A gargantuan stimulus package, which sent most households one-off cheques worth $1,200 or more and topped up unemployment benefits by $600 a week, buoyed millions of families above the official poverty line (set at $21,720 for a family of three). Ariel Kalil, a developmental psychologist at the University of Chicago, was conducting a long-running study on parental behaviour among poor parents (mostly single mothers) of young children in the city before the pandemic struck. Surveying these parents again when families were somewhat protected from the economic shock, she found parents and children getting along better despite the added stress from job losses. Those supports expired in July, even as the pandemic persisted. And the reprieve proved transient. By August, poverty levels had nearly returned to their pre-pandemic levels. Other measures of hardship-like difficulties in affording food and housing-are at eye-popping levels, especially for less-educated workers and non-Asian minorities. The consequences for poor children might become apparent years from now in the form of reduced education, earnings and opportunity. With schooling, a theoretically equalising force, still disrupted and no vaccine yet, how can the extent of the damage be assessed?