That’s $4 trillion dollars the Federal Reserve created out of thin air most of it created between February and April 2020.
But what did all those new dollars mean to the 22 million people who lost their jobs over those same months as the pandemic took hold? Ten million are still counted as unemployed today, not to mention the millions behind on rent or mortgage payments, at risk of eviction or foreclosure. Or what about for the estimated 41 percent of Black-owned businesses that closed over the same February to April of 2020?
State and local governments are using an assortment of tools to push that money in the direction of the people and businesses hit hardest by the pandemic which happen to be disproportionately Black, Indigenous or other people of color.