Rather, these are high five- and low six-figure workers who kept their jobs and their pay. For the employed, average weekly pay has never fallen. In both April and November, it was just over $1,000 a week, or $50,000 a year, similar to last year.
These are the folk who always wanted to pay down that credit-card debt — $120 billon of which has vanished this year.
Yet for a married couple with two kids earning $200,000, House Democrats’ stimulus proposal would mean another $5,500 in the bank, including stimulus credits for children.
That money is going to sit there. With the pandemic raging, there isn’t much to stimulate.
When the pandemic is over? Broad stimulus will just add hundreds of billions to that $1 trillion-plus waiting to be spent, pushing up the prices of finite goods and services, such as hotel rooms and airplane flights. Alternatively, people will have decided that they like having savings — in which case, an extra $2,000 won’t change their mind.
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