The comedown: After stimulus boom, Americans face a darkening economy

Jazmin Johnson never had more than $300 in her bank account. Then came a gusher of federal stimulus funds during the pandemic, and Johnson’s savings swelled, rising to roughly $10,000 one day last spring.

But roughly a year later, that boost is almost all gone. On a recent Tuesday morning, the mother of two sat at a food pantry in the Philadelphia suburbs, waiting to pick up free diapers and lamenting that her bank balance now stands at $511. On their last trip to the grocery store, Johnson told her 3-year-old that they could no longer afford his favorite red Hawaiian Punch.

That kind of turnaround is alarming for anyone going through it — and it may be the key to understanding why Americans have turned so sharply on this economy, posing a massive political threat to the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress ahead of this year’s midterm elections.