$600 A Week: Poverty Remedy Or Job Slayer?
On the face of it, $600 is a pretty unremarkable number.
The federal government has been paying this additional amount each week to every person who has lost a job due to the pandemic.
But astonishingly, the number has taken on huge significance in its short life. As the pandemic wreaks havoc in the United States, snatching millions of jobs, mostly in the low-income segment, the additional $600 weekly payment has become a financial lifeline for many households, helping pay for rent, food and clothing since the beginning of April.
It has also single-handedly changed the economic equation. One topsy-turvy outcome is that many people are earning more staying home than they did in the jobs they lost. And some businesses are finding that employees do not want to come back to jobs that pay less than what they
