The devastating health toll of COVID-19 caused the United States to shed a net total of nearly 10 million jobs in 2020: The worst annual employment figure in more than 80 years, hitting hardest those populations for whom every day can be a health and economic crisis.
A sharp increase in the nation’s poverty rate appeared all but inevitable. Yet thanks to historic infusions of federal dollars directly into people’s pockets, poverty rates actually declined in 2020 and are projected to fall even further this year.
The above is an excerpt of a piece originally published in The Hill.
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