The ratio of job openings to unemployed workers remains high and, outside the affected sectors, wage growth has not fallen much.

economic disruption appears concentrated in certain sectors, rather than spread widely.

If job creation were to return to the average pace achieved between June and November 2020, the pre-pandemic peak in employment would be reconquered in less than a year.

And stimulus has more than made up the disruption to incomes in 2020

total fiscal stimulus in 2020 amounted to almost $3trn (about 14% of GDP in 2019)

a government-backed housing-finance firm, by mid-December Americans had accumulated about $1.6trn in excess savings.

economists typically assume that households are much less likely to spend wealth windfalls (such as the gains from a rise in the stockmarket) than income.

But if people instead regard these excess savings as delayed income, then the cash hoard represents stimulus that has not yet gone to work, to be unleashed when the economy fully reopens.

Mr Biden’s proposed $1.9trn of stimulus, which includes another $1,400 in cheques, would make the total fiscal boost in 2021 roughly equal to that in 2020.

Typically, Keynesians argue that fiscal stimulus boosts the economy because of a sizeable “multiplier” effect. But the case for the stimulus to be as large as Mr Biden’s proposal “has to be that you think the multiplier in 2021 is really small”,

it seems destined to take total spending in the economy beyond what it can produce next year, resulting in a burst of inflation.

Indeed, since January 6th, when the Democrats won the crucial Senate seats in Georgia that might allow them to pass a big stimulus, the ten-year Treasury yield has risen from about 0.9% to around 1.1%.

bond investors have been expecting higher real interest rates, rather than just higher inflation.

Mr Powell says the Fed has learned the lessons of 2013, when its hints that it might taper asset purchases sent bond markets into a tizz.

It is unclear whether policymakers are committed to “average inflation targeting” as an end in itself, or simply as a means to stop inflation expectations from slipping too much during the downturn,

the assumption of cheap money that underpins today’s sky-high asset prices and the sustainability of rocketing public debt might begin to unravel.

The most likely outcome is that Congress agrees on a smaller stimulus than Mr Biden has proposed, and that overheating, if it occurs, proves temporary.

nobody really knows how fast the economy can grow without setting off inflation.

Suburban and rural districts are much likelier to offer in-person learning than big urban ones, which more commonly serve poor and minority families.

53% of children from low-income families were learning entirely remotely, compared with 40% for those with the wealthiest parents.

young children have played little role in spreading the virus and are the least able to learn remotely.

“Teachers’ unions will have to be more responsible when they cannot point to someone in the White House who is saying: ‘You should inject yourself with bleach.’”

his old boss directed him to pay these women, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, to prevent revelations of extramarital dalliances that could have dented his presidential run. (Mr Trump denies these allegations.)

Mr Vance subpoenaed eight years of financial records and tax documents from Mazars USA, Mr Trump’s accountant.

the Supreme Court proceeded to sit on a final appeal for three months, staying mum and keeping the documents out of the district attorney’s hands.

The ramifications could be serious for Mr Trump as he reprises his role as private citizen: Mr Vance’s office has suggested the investigation may range significantly more broadly than just pay-offs.

Potential charges, if evidence is found, could include scheming to defraud, falsification of business records, insurance fraud and criminal tax fraud

penalties of up to 25 years.

Mr Trump fought assiduously to keep his finances under wraps and soon they may be scrutinised by a grand jury.

New York’s attorney-general, Letitia James, is investigating what she says may be fraudulent business practices in which Mr Trump and the Trump Organisation inflated the value of their assets when applying for loans and deflated them to evade tax liability.

Ms Carroll wrote in 2019 that Mr Trump raped her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store; Ms Zervos said he sexually harassed her on set

Moments after his second impeachment on January 13th, Ms Carroll tweeted: “Trump tore our democracy. I'm going to tear him to shreds in court.”

Mr Racine says some members of the Trump family made a sweet deal with themselves when the inaugural committee—a tax-exempt charity—used non-profit funds to pay the Trump International Hotel $175,000 a day to host events during the 2017 inauguration.

a violation of District of Columbia law governing the operation of non-profit organisations.

that the non-profit footed the bill for a $49,000 payment that should have been issued by the Trump Organisation, a for-profit business.

Persuading someone to use “physical force against the person or property of another” is a federal crime; sparking a riot is a crime under DC law.

Given the broad scope for free speech set by the First Amendment, however, it may be hard to make criminal charges stick.

whether Mr Trump is guilty of inciting a specific lawless action, as opposed to just general exhortation.

Mr Trump could also find himself in legal jeopardy for the hour-long phone call he made to Georgia’s secretary of state on January 2nd.

has asked the Department of Justice and Georgia prosecutors to investigate Mr Trump’s bid to find nearly 12,000 votes to swing the election to him some three weeks after the electoral college voted

the president may have “illegally conspired to deprive the people of Georgia of their right to vote” and “to intimidate Georgia election officials in an effort to falsify the count of votes in the presidential election”.

Mr Trump’s phone call in July 2019 asking Ukraine's president to dig up dirt on Hunter Biden, the son of his eventual rival.

it could constitute extortion and criminal conspiracy under New York law.

Mr Trump may be tempted to issue himself a presidential pardon.

No president has ever attempted such legal onanism, though Richard Nixon contemplated it in 1974

Counsel in the Justice Department said it would be out of line with the principle that “no one may be a judge in his own case”

A self-pardon may run counter to Mr Trump’s instincts, as it would require him to confess to potential misdeeds.

The strategy may also backfire if the courts conclude self-pardons are unconstitutional

he true figure is probably somewhere in-between. Many states allow at least some gun sales to proceed without a background check—for example, in transactions conducted by private sellers.

he National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun-industry trade group, adjusts the FBI’s figures to filter out background checks unrelated to the sale of a firearm.

Because such checks are used for other purposes—including issuing permits and selling gun accessories—they may overstate the true number of guns sold in a given period

FBI’s data suggest that Americans’ interest in guns surged in 2020,

Numbers spiked in March as the coronavirus outbreak spread and Americans worried that the government might be unable to cope with increased crime caused by economic hardships

designation of gun shops as “essential” in some states, allowing them to stay open during lockdowns,

After dipping back down over the summer, the number crept up again as America geared up for the election.

So 2021 may turn out to be another record year.

the Pentagon is going where before it feared to tread. And it is some of the very same people — Democrats — who have in the past warned against a muscular response to past protests, now pushing for an armed military.

the acting police chief in Washington, Robert J. Contee III, announced Wednesday that an additional 5,000 National Guard troops would be deployed to the city to support local law enforcement providing security for Mr. Biden’s inauguration,

More than 3,000 National Guard troops, rotating in 12-hour shifts, will provide security in and around the Capitol at any given time.

Foreign interference that may be masked as domestic unrest is another point of concern

law enforcement officials expressed concern that the police and National Guard troops had inadequate time to coordinate and fully understand the complicated chains of command in Washington’s overlapping local and federal jurisdictions.

need for good planning and coordination

the goal of the police and National Guard should be “prevention and de-escalation” of any violence.

The planning has gone beyond Washington, officials say, as Mr. Biden’s aides try to understand the plans for the capitals of all 50 states, where there is also fear of violence or attacks on State Capitol buildings or federal facilities.

Members of the Guard at the Capitol will be equipped with M9 sidearms and some will carry automatic rifles and shotguns.

Department of Homeland Security officials are worried they may turn to cyberinterference, in an effort to black out Mr. Biden’s first words to the nation, and the world.

similar concerns about infrastructure attacks,

vast majority of military forces in Washington will be National Guard

Pentagon officials express deep worry about protests that are planned for the inauguration. Some 16 groups

law enforcement agencies are planning for a range of outcomes, including a worse-case scenario in which people with firearms try to attack dignitaries, “suicide type aircraft”

try to fly into the Capitol’s restricted airspace and even remote-controlled drones that could be used to attack the crowd.

The 10 charged are accused of illegal border crossing, which carries a one-year sentence. Two of the 10 are also accused of organizing the attempted escape and are potentially facing longer prison terms.

A group of foreign diplomats attempted to attend the hearing but weren’t allowed inside.

he U.S. State Department called on China to release them immediately and allow them to leave the country. “Their so-called crime was to flee tyranny,” the State Department said.

they haven’t been allowed to meet with the attorneys hired by their families. The families say they haven’t been able to meet with their relatives since they were taken from the boat

they called the trial secretive and politically motivated.

“The officially assigned lawyers dodged my questions,” said Chan Lok-yin, mother of another defendant, Li Tsz-yin. “How much longer do I need to wait until I could see him?”

some of the detained activists sent handwritten letters to their families saying they had been treated well.

Beatrice Li, his sister, said she believed her brother was coerced into writing the letter.

The Hong Kong police said the 12 activists each paid tens of thousands of Hong Kong dollars to be smuggled out.

Families said they were notified about the trial three days ago, making it impossible for them to attend under the current coronavirus restrictions, which would require them to be quarantined for two weeks after entering the mainland.

“None of the families know what happened at the Yantian court,”

“A public hearing is one that the outside world knows about.”

nnual sales in excess of $86 billion.

Until recently, Mr. Ma, who is a Communist Party member, was held up as a role model by the Party for his contribution to the “digital economy.”

Regulators regarded the speech as a direct attack against them, and Ant’s public debut was halted just two days before its big day, with Chinese leader Xi Jinping personally intervening to scuttle the market listing,

spoke at a financial forum in Shanghai.

delivered a speech that was highly critical of Chinese regulators, who he said had stifled innovation in the financial industry.

Shortly after the speech, regulators scrapped a planned initial public offering of Ant that would have been the world’s largest to date, raising more than $34 billion from listings in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Mr. Ma last appeared publicly in late October,

Beijing is now looking to shrink Mr. Ma’s technology and financial empire and potentially take a larger stake in his businesses,

Alibaba is now facing an antitrust probe by Chinese market regulators, who are investigating claims that the company abused its dominant position in the e-commerce industry to pressure some merchants to work only with its platforms.

In November last year, Mr. Ma didn’t appear on an episode of a television show in which he was set to appear as a judge,

An Alibaba spokeswoman said his absence was due to a scheduling conflict, and declined to comment on Mr. Ma’s activities.

t isn’t uncommon for Chinese billionaires to disappear from the public eye for long periods during legal and regulatory investigations.

I

Its market capitalization dropped in the final days of 2020 to less than $600 billion, from a high of $859 billion just before the Ant IPO was scuttled.

Alibaba owns one-third of Ant. Its shares have fallen by a further 2% so far in 2021.

In 2019 exports from the province totalled $17.6bn, about the same as in 2017 ($17.5bn), including more than $300m in goods that went to the American market in each of those years.

Until last year, governments and industry leaders around the world said little to directly challenge China over allegations of forced labour.

In March a bipartisan group of members of Congress introduced the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act, which would establish a presumption that all goods from Xinjiang are made with forced labour, blocking them at the border unless companies can prove otherwise.

American customs officials have issued a series of orders blocking certain shipments from Xinjiang,

On December 23rd the Fair Labour Association, a consortium that counts Nike and Adidas among its affiliate members, declared that it was “prohibiting sourcing and production” from Xinjiang, including raw materials like cotton that might end up in finished goods elsewhere.

In December a bill similar to America’s was introduced in Australia’s parliament.

subject of intense lobbying from industry, including representatives of big clothing-makers, who have sought, among other changes, a delay of up to one year in enforcement.

it will take time for all of them to shift supply chains, and to encourage more cotton-growing elsewhere.

they expect the incoming Biden administration to continue the Trump administration’s enforcement actions against Xinjiang imports

they argue that it is difficult to penetrate deep into their supply chains to verify the origin of raw materials

Experts (as well as industry groups) argue that the efforts of Congress and the Trump administration will have a limited impact unless other governments follow suit.

In the European Union the issue of Uyghur forced labour hangs over an investment deal that has been negotiated with China

Not all businesses appear ready to decouple from Xinjiang entirely, or at least quickly

88% of China’s textiles and clothing are produced for domestic consumption. Large non-Chinese firms are among those who profit.

American laws, aided by forensic science, will help to combat forced labour in Xinjiang. But more countries and multinational companies will also have to forgo their immediate self-interest and take on China directly

popular theory

Maria Lahtinen of the Finnish Museum of Natural History thinks she might have the answer as to how wolves and people squared the competitive circle while both species were still hunters.

archaeological evidence suggests that wolves were domesticated in woodlands fringing the ice sheets of the last ice age,

Dr Lahtinen calculates that, given the large size of prey animals in this environment, and humans’ need to eat a balanced diet with plenty of plant matter in it as well as flesh, there would have been a lot of surplus meat around from kills.

Democrats won both run-off elections in Georgia for Senate seats,

Britain was once again in lockdown, as cases and deaths from covid-19 soared.

California’s population has stalled and may, for the first time, be declining

New York endured more shrinkage than any state: it lost 126,000, or 0.65%, of its people.

Some states, mostly in the South, are growing fast, but not enough to lift the national rate.

In the year to July it grew by 0.35% (or 1.2m) to 329m.

Institution calculates expansion in the decade to July 2020 at just 6.6%. If his sums are right, that is the lowest decadal gain since 1790

Evidence has also piled up to show Americans becoming much less mobile

Just 9.3% of the population moved,

high cost of housing that makes it difficult for younger Americans to move.

absence of new, fast-growing cities and more similarity between various labour markets—mean that “this nation of pioneers has parked its wagons”.

technology, such as air-conditioning, previously did much to open up territory for settlement. More recent technology, notably the internet, may instead have made it less necessary to move to find work.

Less immigration, for example, has several effects.

just-concluding decade will see the smallest expansion of the foreign-born population in any decade since the 1970s.

Lower immigration hits domestic mobility, because recent immigrants are among the readiest to move for work.

The average American woman is now expected to have 1.7 children in her lifetime, the lowest level in decades

Mr Mangum sees a long-term reversion to the mean as America becomes less of an exception among rich countries

The policies of Donald Trump sharply cut inflows of migrants.

suggest deaths from covid-19, which may exceed 500,000 by April, will cut average life expectancy by more than one year.

The pandemic and the economic slump are also causing a baby bust.

estimate there will be 300,000 fewer births than otherwise expected in 2021

Eventual reopening of borders should see immigration tick up again. Even so, slower population growth will “continue in the coming years”

America “is looking more and more like Europe, with lower fertility, more measured levels of migration”.

Several Midwestern and north-eastern states, for example, will lose political clout as congressional and electoral-college seats go in reapportionment in 2021

matters for state finances if there are fewer taxpayers to pay for public services.

The US Census set out scenarios for the forecast population in 2060.

Were the country to return to being an exceptional place, open to high levels of immigration, its population could reach 447m. As a more normal rich country, less welcoming to immigrants, it could shrink to 320m. ■RecommendedGraphic detailAmerica’s demography is looking EuropeanInternationalThe scandal-hit market for passports and long-term visas is boomingThe AmericasJobs are coming back in Canada, thanks to subsidies

Speaking frankly, it’s a lie,” says Liang Yong, a gruff villager. The official investigation of Ziyun’s economy was, he says, perfunctory.

Provincial leaders popped into his village, rendered their verdict that it had left poverty behind and then sped off. “It’s a show. In our hearts we all know the truth,”

Pork is pricey these days, so he eats meat just a couple of times a week. After paying his two children’s school fees, he has little money left.

He is poorer than many others in China, especially in its cities.

But the ability to scrape enough together for meat, education and heating marks Mr Liang as someone who has in fact left extreme poverty

Sceptics understandably ask whether China fiddled its numbers in order to win what it calls the “battle against poverty”.

It has regularly raised the official poverty line, which, accounting for living costs, is about $2.30 a day at prices prevailing in 2011.

Poverty lines in rich countries are much higher: the equivalent line in America is about $72 a day for a four-member household at 2020 prices.)

In 1978, shortly after Mao’s death, nearly 98% of those in the countryside lived in extreme poverty, by China’s current standards. By 2016 that was down to less than 5%

It decollectivised agriculture, giving farmers an incentive to produce more. It allowed people to move around the country to find work. It gave more freedom to entrepreneurs. It helped by building roads, investing in education and courting foreign investors. Its goal was to boost the economy;

The government’s approach changed in 2015 when Xi Jinping, its leader, vowed to eradicate the last vestiges of extreme poverty by the end of 2020.

tried to encourage personal initiative by rewarding poor people who found ways of bettering their lot

They spent public money widely.

I

n 2020 the allocation per head was more than 26,000 yuan

One of the biggest challenges has been the terrain where the poor live.

about 30% of the country’s total—that were designated as poverty-stricken when Mr Xi began his anti-poverty campaign were all mainly rural. Most were mountainous or on inhospitable land

to introduce industry

mostly modern agriculture.

government created a 25-hectare zone for growing and processing shiitake mushrooms

the shiitake are a cash crop, letting them earn about 80 yuan a day, a decent wage.

In the 1980s China broke up communal farms, letting people strike out on their own. Now the government wants them to pool their resources again

turning farmers into “shareholders”

Residents get stakes in new rural enterprises, which, all going well, will pay dividends.

The Luomai shiitake farm is run by China Southern Power Grid, a state-owned firm. But there is a risk that as the anti-poverty campaign fades away, some projects will fizzle.

The second approach to helping hard-up villages was more radical: moving inhabitants to better-connected areas.

2016 and 2020 officials relocated about 10m people.

The government concluded that it was too costly to provide necessary services, from roads to health care, to the most remote villages

A frequent problem after moving people into such housing is finding work for them.

the government called on local officials to arrange jobs for at least one member of each household.

with her new surroundings. There is a good school just across the street, which is far better for her child.

A bigger challenge is relative deprivation, a problem abundantly evident to anyone who has travelled between the glitzy coastal cities and the drabber towns of the hinterland.

recent study by Chinese economists concluded that the “subjective poverty line” in rural areas was about 23 yuan per day, nearly twice the amount below which a person would be officially classified as poor.

namely setting the relative poverty line at half the median income level. It suggests that about a third of rural Chinese still see themselves as poor.

If poverty is calculated this way it becomes almost impossible to eliminate,

China does not count any poverty in its cities because welfare safeguards supposedly help those without money.

But workers who have moved from the countryside lack the right documentation for ready access to urban welfare.

And for any city-dweller, support is meagre. In relative terms about a fifth of China’s urban residents can be classified as poor,

To reduce relative poverty, China needs different tactics from the ones used in its campaign against extreme poverty.

policies for which it has shown little eagerness.

On the streets of Guiyang, the booming capital of Guizhou, hardship is still a common sight.

Zhou Weifu, a porter in his 50s, scoffs at the suggestion that poverty is over. “What kind of work is this? I can barely make any money,”