Fed survey shows almost 40 percent of American households making less than $40k lost a job in March

(Image credit: Federal Reserve via Getty Images)

published 13 May 2020

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday said "the reversal of economic fortune" brought on by the coronavirus pandemic over the last two months in the United States "has caused a level of pain that is hard to capture in words."

Statistics, though, can help paint a clearer picture of the crisis. In the same address, Powell said the Fed is releasing a survey Thursday which found that among people who were working in February, nearly 40 percent of those in households making less than $40,000 per year lost a job in March.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.