Fed’s Harker Says Pandemic Is Worsening U.S. Inequality

The coronavirus pandemic is worsening U.S. inequality along income and racial lines, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Patrick Harker said.

“This health crisis has not so much changed things as simply exposed, and in some cases accelerated, trends that were already present in our society,” Harker said Thursday in remarks prepared for a virtual event. “The United States went into this crisis a troublingly unequal place, beset by serious inequities in income, wealth, and opportunity.”