Queen Mary University of London: Social media posts can be used to track individuals’ income and economic inequalities. “Researchers from Queen Mary University of London analysed 2.6 million posts on popular social media network Nextdoor and accurately predicted individuals’ income by solely examining the posts they’ve published.”
New York Times: Covid, inflation and a loss of aid crimped American incomes in January.. “January was also the first month since mid-2021 in which parents did not receive payments under the expanded child tax credit, which expired at the end of last year. Income from government programs fell 1.3 percent last month. Yet despite the crimp in incomes, Americans continued to spend. Consumer spending rose 2.1 percent in January. Even after adjusting for inflation, spending was up 1.5 percent.”
Politico: America’s hidden economic crisis: Widespread wage cuts. “Millions of Americans who managed to hold onto their jobs amid the coronavirus pandemic have seen their incomes drop as employers slashed wages and hours to weather what they expected to be a short-term shutdown. Now, with the virus raging and the recession deepening, those cuts that were meant to be temporary could turn permanent — or even pave the way for further layoffs. That could portend deep damage to the labor market and the economy because so many workers who have kept their jobs have less money to spend than a few months ago.”
CNN: Half of US adults live in households that lost income in pandemic. “The coronavirus pandemic has generated a lot of eye-popping statistics as it wreaks devastation across America. Here’s the latest: Half of US adults live in households that lost income from jobs.”
Vox EU: Global earnings inequality: Evidence from a new database. “Recent studies have analysed trends in global income inequality, but for most people in the world, labour earnings represent the vast majority of their income. This column uses a new global database on occupational earnings since 1970 to examine trends in earnings inequality between countries’ high- and low- earners, between countries, and between occupational groups. Global earnings inequality has fallen over the past half-century, and so has inequality within occupations, with main equalisation in the late 1990s and 2000s.”
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