Congress’s Covid Income Redistribution; Here’s how many health care workers have died from COVID-19, and other C-Virus Updates

Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Congress’s Covid Income Redistribution:

State income figures show the Cares Act helped blue states far more than red

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this weekend that House Democrats plan to pass a new $2.4 trillion relief bill “that puts money in people’s pockets.” So it’s worth highlighting how the $2.2 trillion Cares Act that passed in March has disproportionately helped blue states that imposed stricter coronavirus lockdowns and have been slower to recover economically.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis on Thursday published its second-quarter state personal income report, and the data show how lockdowns affected earnings and government income transfers. Personal incomes last quarter grew a whopping 34.8% as transfer receipts (854%) more than offset lower earnings (minus-27.5%).

But what a difference a lockdown makes. Earnings dropped most in states like New York (-36.8%), New Jersey (-31.5%), California (-30.8%) and Connecticut (-29%) with stricter and longer closures. States like Utah (-14%), Arizona (-18.1%), Texas (-21.6%) and Florida (-22.3%) that let more industries operate and others gradually reopen had smaller declines.

Construction was forced to shut down almost entirely and contributed significantly to earnings reductions in New York (3.1 percentage points), Washington (2.48) and New Jersey (1.62). States that allowed residential and commercial construction this spring like Arizona (0.25), Florida (0.62) and Georgia (0.80) experienced much smaller earnings declines.

Most states paused nonessential health care during the early days of the pandemic, but some states maintained restrictions longer and broader than necessary to respond to or prepare for an infection surge. Hence health-care earnings fell much more in New York (-3.79), New Jersey (-3.73) and California (-2.28) than in Florida (-1.57), Arizona (-1.58) and Texas (-1.86). --->READ MORE HERE

Getty Images

Here’s how many health care workers have died from COVID-19:

More than 1,700 health care workers have died of COVID-19 and related complications — after many of them said they didn’t have adequate personal protective equipment, according to the country’s largest nurses union.

The report released by National Nurses United also found health care workers of color have been disproportionately affected by deaths and infections and there’s been a serious undercount of figures nationwide.

“While this figure for all health care workers is higher than has been reported elsewhere, National Nurses United (NNU) believes it is a conservative estimate. These cases have been documented by NNU using media reports, social media, obituaries, union memorials, federal and state reporting, and NNU internal reporting,” the report states. --->READ MORE HERE

Follow links below to related stories and resources:

Two key deadlines approaching to claim stimulus checks

USA TODAY: Coronavirus Updates

WSJ: Coronavirus Live Updates

YAHOO NEWS: Coronavirus Live Updates

NEW YORK POST: Coronavirus The Latest

If you like what you see, please "Like" us on Facebook either here or here. Please follow us on Twitter here.