Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Congress's Covid Income Redistribution

The Bureau of Economic Analysis on Thursday published its second-quarter state personal income report, and the data show how lockdowns affected earnings and government income transfers.

Earnings dropped most in states like New York, New Jersey, California and Connecticut with stricter and longer closures.

States like Utah, Arizona, Texas and Florida that let more industries operate and others gradually reopen had smaller declines.

Most states paused nonessential health care during the early days of the pandemic, but some states maintained restrictions longer and broader than necessary to respond to or prepare for an infection surge.

Notably, state and local government accounted for less than 10% of the earnings declines in Democratic states that crushed their economies and are now begging Congress for relief.

We calculated the per-capita annualized increase in transfer payments, and many Democratic-run states received nearly double what GOP-run states did: New Jersey, Illinois, New York, California, Washington, Oregon and Connecticut versus Texas, Indiana, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia Arizona and Utah.

Democratic states have maintained stricter business restrictions, which many small businesses couldn't survive even with Congress's paycheck-protection loans.
 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/congresss-covid-income-redistribution-11601334241 

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