Supporting workers in the Covid-19 era is as much about emotion as economics | Torsten Bell

Losing a job reduces happiness as well as spending power

We are entering the grim jobs-being-lost phase of this crisis: 695,000 fewer of us are on payrolls and the Bank of England expects unemployment to rise by 1.2m. The chancellor's new measures will reduce, but far from halt, this tide.

Economic policy specialists tend to focus on the financial effects of redundancies. And they are painfully large. A worker earning 20,000 loses 71% of their income if they lose their job and fall back on universal credit.