Hi, I'm Dan Pramak and welcome to Axios Recap, presented by Facebook.

Today is Monday, June 22nd.

U.S. air travel is up, the death rate from COVID-19 is going down, and we're focused on the

next stimulus, or maybe even permanent stimulus.

When the pandemic hit earlier this year, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that U.S. poverty would be one of the only economic numbers to rise.

But then a funny thing happened. It went down. That's the finding of a new study from the University of Chicago and Notre Dame highlighted on the front page of today's New York Times. The story also included a separate study from Columbia University, showing a slight increase in U.S. poverty rates from 12.5% to 12.7%.

But still, that's pretty small, considering skyrocketing unemployment.

What both studies agree on is that the poverty numbers would have been

much, much worse, if not for the federal stimulus. Columbia's report, for example, said that the

poverty figure would have hit 16.3% if not for the government's combination of personal checks,

small business bailout loans, and expanded unemployment benefits. The problem, though though is that that stimulus, it's

running out. Those checks of up to $1,200 were a one-time only thing. The small business

loan application process? Well, that expires next week and expanded unemployment benefits

are done at the end of July. So going forward, the big question is, if stimulus work to keep food in the fridge and

roofs over our heads, will we get another round?

Or maybe more to the point, could some pieces of stimulus become a regular part of the American

experience?

Pandemic or no pandemic?

This in many ways is the universal basic income idea, championed by Andrew Yang

during the Democratic Party's presidential primaries. Now, he was worried about Americans losing

their jobs due to automation, not to coronavirus, but the general principle still may apply.

At least it seems like it could. In 15 seconds, we'll talk to Andrew Yang about if he thinks the federal

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