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10/17/20

US Economy: It is time to stop looking at the US economy from Wall Street - by Cristina Ramirez

Crises have a way of turning existing cracks in political and economic systems into fault lines. They bring to light what has been hiding beneath the surface. This is why the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic, the most serious global health crisis in a century, has exposed the many pre-existing weaknesses of the US economy and laid bare the nation’s failure to judge the economy by what actually matters: How it works for working and middle-class Americans. 

In a matter of weeks, the pandemic left 26 million Americans unemployed and food banks overwhelmed. As one in four workers in the country are not entitled to a single day of paid sick leave, COVID-19 also forced many Americans to choose between staying healthy and putting food on their tables. It brought to the surface the growing economic precarity of tens of millions of Americans which Wall Street, and many in Washington, have long been ignoring.

While some economists and politicians, such as Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs Executive Steven Mnuchin, claim that the American economy was doing just fine before the start of the pandemic, the truth is many Americans have been living on the verge of economic collapse long before COVID-19 reached the country. After the 2008 economic crash, Wall Street and big corporations rebounded quickly, but millions of Americans did not. 

The likes of Mnuchin get away with claiming the US economy was doing brilliantly before the outbreak because they judge economic success merely by the success and profitability of big corporations and not the economic stability and wellbeing of ordinary Americans, such as small business owners, warehouse workers and delivery drivers. 

If Mnuchin judged the health of the US economy by how well everyday people are coping, he would have seen that things were not so rosy on “Main Street” even before COVID-19.

Read more at: 
It is time to stop looking at the US economy from Wall Street | US & Canada | Al Jazeera

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