Category Archives: US income inequality

New York’s patchwork recovery masks vast inequities laid bare by Covid

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There are signs of renewal in a city that has weathered crisis after crisis, but what its future looks like remains an open question

For most of the past year, Manhattan’s signature yellow cabs have been a rarity on the avenues and cross-streets. Now, as the city picks up and office workers begin to return, they too are returning – but not yet on a pre-pandemic scale. At the same time, the city is gridlocked by traffic.

A patchwork of indicators suggest the recovery from a pandemic that hit hard and early, caused close to 30,000 deaths out of a 8.4-million population and placed the metropolis in an economic deep-freeze will be similarly uneven.

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Richest 25 Americans reportedly paid ‘true tax rate’ of 3.4% as wealth rocketed

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ProPublica investigation shows how little US super-rich, including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, reportedly paid between 2014 and 2018

The 25 richest Americans, including Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Elon Musk, paid a “true tax rate” of just 3.4% between 2014 and 2018, according to an investigation by ProPublica, despite their collective net worth rising by more than $400bn in the same period.

Related: Global economy set for fastest recovery for more than 80 years

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Value judgment: Donald Trump tumbles down billionaires’ rankings

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While the richest got spectacularly richer during the pandemic, the ex-president plummeted nearly 300 places in the Forbes list

It’s been a glorious pandemic for the world’s richest people. Forbes annual billionaire poll includes a record-breaking 2,755 billionaires, with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos once again topping the list, the media company said on Tuesday.

The ranks of the super wealthy swelled as the coronavirus pandemic threatened the lives and livelihoods of millions across the planet but stock markets continued to hit new highs.

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The US is on ‘inequality autopilot’ – how can Biden’s treasury pick help change course?

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Janet Yellen will likely be the US’s first female treasury secretary – but as Covid shutdowns loom, she will have to win Republican votes for any major initiatives

Teresa Marez has never heard of Janet Yellen, likely to be the next treasury secretary of the United States. But she and millions of other Americans have a lot riding on the decisions Yellen will make if and when she is confirmed next year.

The coronavirus has upended Marez’s life. Her savings are almost exhausted and she is worried about her unemployment benefits, which run out next week. “It’s so hard. It’s just such a mess,” said the mother of two in San Antonio, Texas. “We just need Congress to make a decision,” Marez said. “As long as they are in limbo, we are in limbo.”

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‘Coming here is a necessity’: demand for food aid soars in US amid job losses

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Nationwide the need for aid at food banks and pantries has surged amid worst unemployment rate in modern times

Neisha Davis cradles brown paper lunch bags in the crook of one arm, while holding on to Demitri, her wriggling baby son, in the other and keeping a careful eye on Naya, her four-year-old daughter, as she runs around the church car park with another little girl.

It’s hectic but the free packed lunches have become a crucial part of their daily nutrition. So everyday at noon the family make the two-mile journey from Homewood, a low income predominantly African American Pittsburgh neighbourhood with no grocery stores, to the East End Community Ministry’s pop-up lunch stall in East Liberty.

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African Americans bear the brunt of Covid-19’s economic impact

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Pandemic spotlights racial disparities, with black workers expected to feature disproportionately in the 26m recent unemployment claims

Just two months ago in the Cabinet Room of the White House, sitting at a table surrounded by a handful of his black supporters, Donald Trump once again praised his job creation record. “Black people right now are having the best, statistically, the best numbers that you’ve ever had, and it’s really an honor,” he said. “Nobody has done more for black people than I have. Nobody has done more.”

That was 27 February and Trump was also still claiming he had done an “incredible job” with the looming coronavirus pandemic. Now the virus has led 26 million Americans to file for unemployment. While the US Bureau of Labor Statistics will not release unemployment figures broken down by race until the beginning of next month, economists are certain that black Americans are suffering the brunt of Covid-19’s economic impact and will probably suffer the most dramatic consequences of the looming recession.

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