Don't know how it played where you live, but in my country, most covid handouts went to the rich, not to the poor.
1. Cash was given to companies they could then give to the people, instead of straight to the people.
2. Cheap/free loans were given to companies/rich people, not poor people, because poor people can't pay off loans so nobody gives them any.
The insane stock market profits were the result of this - rich people getting excess money. If it went to the poor people, they'd buy food and shelter, not stonks.
And much expanded unemployment payments, +$600 and +$300 *weekly on top of normal unemployment for long periods, as well as significantly expanded eligibility for who could get it and for how long.
Plenty of people made more money unemployed for significant amounts of time than they did with their jobs pre-pandemic.
Something like 10% of the population was on unemployment for a good while.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/many-americans-are-gett...
They didn't say anything that would let you conclude either of those things in the article, one they said the exact opposite of. Not read the whole paper yet though.
What is clear however, that increased prices for labor, wheat and energy, combined with post-covid logistics issues, have very clearly increased consumer pricing.
Or perhaps another way to say it is this: cash doesn’t matter. It’s all about capital. If you want to reduce inequality, give the poor some capital. Unfortunately, I think they’ll likely sell their capital to buy food or pay rent.
Who is going to suffer because of the enormous covid handouts and subsequent inflation?
It was nice while it happened but a lot of rich people really benefited and a lot of poor people are going to go through the worst consequences of inflation and recession.