About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

1 1 (November 30, 2020)

handle is hein.crs/govdcto0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional Research Servkc Personal Income Growth During the COVID- 19 Pandemic November 30, 2020 Personal income measures the resources an individual accrues over a period of time. Typically, measures of personal income move in line with the business cycle (the pattern of economic expansions and contractions). During an economic contraction, individuals typically demand fewer goods and services, causing total output to decrease, unemployment to increase, and personal income to decrease. However, personal income has behaved unusually during the recession caused by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This Insight discusses recent patterns of personal income and offers potential explanations for its irregular behavior. COVID-19 Personal Income Patterns In contrast to many previous recessions, total personal income has increased during the COVID-19 recession (see Figure 1 and Figure 2). This is unusual, especially given the unprecedented decreases in employment and GDP. InApril alone, personal income increased by over 12%. Personal income in September was still higher than it was in February, before the pandemic began, but lower than in April. This increase and maintenance of levels of personal income, due in large part (see Figure 4) to provisions in the CARES Act, could be responsible for some of the other unusual economic trends in this recession, such as the maintenance of housing demand and the smaller-than-usual drop in durable goods spending. Of course, summary data may not show informative trends happening within groups of individuals and households. With the increased unemployment rate, many are likely to have seen decreased levels of income over the same period, even as aggregate measures were increasing. As recently as the weeks of October 28 through November 9, roughly 25% of adults expected someone in their households to have a loss in employment income in the next four weeks, according to the Census Pulse Survey. In some cases, enhanced unemployment benefits may have more than replaced normal income for individuals before expiration, but this is not true across the board. Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov IN11546 CRS NSIGHT Prepared for Membersand Commi ----es o Cong rss-----------------------------------

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most