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    Wage Growth Is Holding Up in Aftermath of the Economic Crash

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    The pay increases are giving Democrats a bragging point. But it comes with risks: Gains could fade, or spark quicker price inflation.When millions of workers were getting layoff notices last spring, Sharon McCown got something different: a raise.Target, where Ms. McCown was earning $13 an hour stocking shelves and helping customers, gave frontline workers an extra $2 an hour in hazard pay in the early months of the pandemic. The company later raised starting pay permanently to $15 an hour, and paid out a series of bonuses to hourly employees.The extra pay, combined with relief checks from the federal government and the forced savings that came with pandemic life, means Ms. McCown, who is 62 and lives in Louisville, Ky., will emerge from the pandemic in better financial shape than she was in before it.“I did save quite a bit of money given that I wasn’t doing as I usually do, going out to movies, going out to dinner,” she said. “I would look at my bank account, and I was really happy with it.”Workers in retail, hospitality and other service industries bore the brunt of last year’s mass layoffs. But unlike low-wage workers in past recessions, whose earnings power eroded, many of those who held on to their jobs saw their wages rise even during the worst months of the pandemic.Now, as the economy bounces back and employers need to find staff, workers have the kind of leverage that is more typical of a prolonged boom than the aftermath of a devastating recession. Average earnings for non-managers in leisure and hospitality hit $15 an hour in February for the first time on record; in April, they rose to $15.70, a more than 4.5 percent raise in just two months.President Biden’s administration is embracing those gains and hoping they shift power away from employers and back toward workers. And Federal Reserve officials have indicated that they would like to see employment and pay rising, because those would be signs that they were making progress toward their goals of full employment and stable prices. The stage is set for an economic experiment, one that tests whether the economy can lift laborers steadily without igniting much-faster price increases that eat away at the gains.“Instead of workers competing with each other for jobs that are scarce, we want employers to compete with each other to attract workers,” Mr. Biden said in Cleveland last week. “When American workers have more money to spend, American businesses benefit. We all benefit.”Data on pay gains have been hard to interpret because state and local lockdowns tossed people who earn relatively little out of work, causing average hourly earnings to artificially pop last spring. But when you look across a variety of measures, wages seem to be growing at close to prepandemic levels.That came as a surprise to economists.Earnings growth typically slows sharply when unemployment is high, which it has been for the past 14 months. Many economists thought that would happen this time around, too. Instead, paychecks seem to have been resilient to the enormous shock brought on by the pandemic: Wage growth wiggled or fell early on, but has been gradually climbing for months now.“It’s not necessarily going gangbusters, but it’s just higher than you would think” when so many Americans are out of work, said John Robertson, an economist who runs the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s widely used wage growth tracker. Payrolls are still down by 8.2 million jobs, although that number could fall when fresh data is released Friday.Even workers with less formal education, who have experienced the worst job losses and still face high unemployment rates, have seen pay accelerate this year as economies reopen and employers struggle to hire. That’s according to the Atlanta Fed gauge, which is calculated in a way that makes it less susceptible to at least some of the composition issues plaguing other wage measures. A separate, quarterly measure of overall compensation costs has also held up.The data, while messy, match anecdotes. Reports of labor shortages in service jobs that are newly reopening abound, and surveys show businesses and consumers becoming more confident that employee earnings will increase. Job openings have been surging, and the rate at which workers are quitting suggests that they have some room to be choosy.Many employers, particularly in hospitality, have blamed generous unemployment benefits — now set at an extra $300 per week — for encouraging workers to stay home and making it harder for them to hire. More than 20 states, all led by Republican governors, have moved to cut off pandemic unemployment programs before their scheduled September end date.Republicans have warned that as employers lift pay to attract scarce workers, they may be forced out of business or pass along added labor costs in the form of higher prices. That could turn an inflation surge now underway as the economy reopens into one that’s longer lasting.But Democrats and many at the Fed think the risk of a persistent and rapid acceleration in prices is smaller, and many of them are embracing the apparent increase in pay and benefits as a long-awaited opportunity.The financial cushion of unemployment benefits and repeated rounds of relief checks from the federal government has given many low-wage workers more leverage with potential employers. That’s after decades of steady declines in workers’ share of the nation’s overall income.“You’re giving those frontline workers a little more bargaining power because they’re not as financially strapped and they can make some choices,” said Julia Coronado, president of MacroPolicy Perspectives, an economic consulting firm.Like Ms. McCown, Lake Shircliff got a $2-an-hour raise at the Louisville-area Target where they work.Luke Sharrett for The New York TimesWhen Kentucky’s governor ordered most businesses to shut down in March 2020, Lake Shircliff kept his job. His sister, McKenzie, did not. But neither of them suffered financially in the pandemic.Mr. Shircliff, 21, works at the same Louisville-area Target as Ms. McCown, and was considered an essential worker. He also got a $2-an-hour raise, to $15, and now earns $15.60.Ms. Shircliff, who lives with her brother, was styling hair in a salon when the governor announced that nonessential businesses were closing. She applied for unemployment benefits after closing that evening, before she even left the salon.“Thinking that I wasn’t going to have a job was pretty scary,” she said.But unemployment benefits helped fill the gap, and when Ms. Shircliff’s salon reopened after Memorial Day last year, business was booming. The salon has been able to raise prices twice over the past year, which means higher commissions for workers. In the end, Ms. Shircliff, 25, earned nearly as much last year as the year before, even before unemployment benefits and federal relief checks. She ended the year with more money in her savings account.“It just gives me more peace of mind,” she said. “Now if something really terrible happened it would not scare me like it would before.”It is unclear whether today’s gains will persist, or whether they could slow as employers work through short-term hiring challenges.“The psychology of this downturn was different,” said Michelle Meyer, an economist at Bank of America who thinks the trend could continue. Employees don’t expect pay gains to slow, since they look around and see employers hungry for workers, so they may continue to demand more pay.“This cycle is in some ways a continuation of the last one,” Ms. Meyer said, referring to the record-long economic expansion in place before the pandemic.But there’s a big caveat. If the millions of workers who are currently sidelined start searching for jobs, they could flood the market with a new supply of workers, holding back pay.At its Taco Cabana and Pollo Tropical restaurants, Fiesta Restaurant Group is paying all employees an extra $1 per hour “just for the time being, to get us through this labor crunch,” Richard Stockinger, the chief executive, said in a May 13 earnings call. The company planned to raise prices to help cover the wage boost.If higher pay is passed along through price increases, that carries its own risks. Faster inflation would leave those who were out of work worse off, and if it is severe enough, it could prompt the Fed to dial back its economic support policies. Abrupt policy shifts tend to cause recessions, throwing workers out of jobs.But it is unclear whether businesses will be able to consistently charge more. Companies have struggled to raise prices for years because of increased competition from the internet and abroad and consumer expectations for relatively steady prices. Even in 2019, when unemployment was low and pay steadily rising, inflation remained calm.If some firms choose to take the hit to their profits rather than scare away customers, wage growth could tilt economic power away from companies and toward the people they employ.That is what Kenneyatta Cochran, a McDonald’s worker in Detroit, is hoping for. Ms. Cochran, 38, has been working at McDonald’s for three years and makes $10 per hour, and she’s part of a group of workers pushing for a $15 wage and a union.She can’t take advantage of more attractive job options elsewhere because she can’t afford a car. McDonald’s is reachable by bus. She received neither hazard pay nor big wage increases during the depths of the pandemic.Asked for comment, McDonald’s noted it had recently announced that the entry-level range for its work crews was climbing to at least $11 to $17 per hour. That applies to stores it owns, rather than franchises.“I worked straight through — I couldn’t afford to take off,” said Ms. Cochran, who has a 1-year-old daughter, Olivia Grace. Ms. Cochran lived in fear that she would either die from Covid-19 and leave her child alone or pass the virus along to the baby, who had a breathing problem when she was born.“If I lose my child or if I lose my life, McDonald’s is still going on — they feel like we’re replaceable, disposable,” she said during a phone interview, her voice tight. She added, as if talking straight to the company: “It makes no sense that y’all can’t provide us with the things that we need, and it’s not like you can’t afford it.” More

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    Here Are The 5 Ways to Track the United States' Economic Recovery

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    The ebbing of the pandemic has brought price increases, supply bottlenecks and labor shortages. Key indicators will show whether it’s just a stage.This is a strange moment for the U.S. economy.Unemployment is still high, but companies are complaining they can’t find enough workers. Prices are shooting up for some goods and services, but not for others. Supply-chain bottlenecks are making it hard for homebuilders, automakers and other manufacturers to get the materials they need to ramp up production. A variety of indicators that normally move more or less together are right now telling vastly different stories about the state of the economy.Most forecasters, including policymakers at the Federal Reserve, expect the confusion to be short-lived. They see what amounts to a temporary mismatch between supply and demand, brought on by the relatively swift ebbing of the pandemic: Consumers, flush with stimulus cash and ready to re-engage with the world after a year of lockdowns, are eager to spend, but some businesses lack the staff and supplies they need to serve them. Once companies have had a chance to bring on workers and restock shelves — and people have begun to catch up on long-delayed hair appointments and family vacations — economic data should begin to return to normal.But no one knows for sure. It is possible that the pandemic changed the economy in ways that aren’t yet fully understood, or that short-term disruptions could have long-lasting ripple effects. Some prominent economists are publicly fretting that today’s price increases could set the stage for faster inflation down the road. Historical analogues such as the postwar boom of the 1950s or the “stagflation” era of the 1970s provide at best limited insight into the present moment.“We can’t dismiss anything at this point because there’s no precedent for any of this,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, a forecasting firm.On Friday, the Labor Department will release its monthly snapshot of the U.S. labor market. Last month’s report showed much slower job growth than expected, and economists will be watching closely to see whether that disappointment was a fluke. But don’t expect definitive answers. A second month of weak job growth could be a sign of a faltering recovery, or merely an indication that the temporary factors will take more than a couple of months to resolve. A strong report, on the other hand, could signal that talk of a labor shortage was overblown — or that employers have overcome it by bidding up wages, which could fuel inflation.To get a clearer picture, economists will have to look beyond their usual suite of indicators. Here are some things they will be watching.1. PricesChange in consumer prices from a year earlier

    Source: Federal Reserve Bank of San FranciscoBy The New York TimesConsumer prices rose 4.2 percent in April from a year earlier, the biggest jump in more than a decade. But the largest increases were mostly in categories where demand is rebounding after collapsing during the pandemic, like travel and restaurants, or in products plagued by supply-chain disruptions, like new cars. Those pressures should ease in the coming months.What would be more concerning to economists is any sign that price increases are spreading to the rest of the economy. Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco studied sales patterns from early last year to categorize products and services based on the pandemic’s impact. Their Covid-insensitive inflation index so far shows little sign of runaway inflation beyond pandemic-affected areas.Economists will also be watching other, less pandemic-specific measures that likewise aim to discern the signal of inflation amid the noise of short-term disruptions. The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s trimmed-mean C.P.I., for example, takes the Labor Department’s well-known Consumer Price Index and strips away its most volatile components.“What we’re looking for is what does underlying inflation look like,” said Ellen Zentner, chief U.S. economist at Morgan Stanley.For those looking for a simpler measure, Ms. Zentner offers a shortcut: Just look at rents. The rental component of C.P.I. (as well as the “owner’s equivalent rent” category, which measures housing costs for homeowners) is the largest single item in the overall price index, and should be less affected by the pandemic than some other categories. If rents start to rise rapidly beyond a few hot markets, overall inflation could follow.2. Inflation ExpectationsConsumer inflation expectations in the short and long term

    Source: University of MichiganBy The New York TimesOne reason economists are so focused on inflation is that it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy: If workers think prices will keep rising, they will demand raises, which will force their employers to raise prices, and so on. As a result, forecasters pay attention not just to actual prices but also to people’s expectations.In the short run, consumers’ inflation expectations are heavily affected by the prices of items purchased frequently. Gasoline prices weigh particularly heavily on consumers’ minds — not only do most Americans have to fill up regularly, but the price of gas is displayed in two-foot-tall numbers at stations across the country. Economists therefore tend to pay more attention to consumers’ longer-run expectations, such as the five-year inflation expectations index from the University of Michigan, which recently hit a seven-year high.Forecasters also pay close attention to the expectations of businesses, investors and other forecasters. Many economists pay particular attention to market-based measures of inflation expectations, because investors have money riding on the outcome. (One such measure, derived from the bond market, is the five-year, five-year forward rate, which forecasts inflation over a five-year period beginning five years in the future.) The Federal Reserve has recently begun publishing a quarterly index of common inflation expectations, which pulls together a variety of measures. It showed that inflation expectations rose in the first quarter of this year, but remain low by historical standards.3. Labor SupplyUnemployed workers per job opening

    Source: Bureau of Labor StatisticsBy The New York TimesRestaurants, hotels and other employers across the country in recent months have complained that they cannot find enough workers, despite an unemployment rate that remains higher than before the pandemic. There is evidence to back them up: Job openings have surged to record levels, but hiring hasn’t kept up. Millions of people who had jobs before the pandemic aren’t even looking for work.Many Republicans say enhanced unemployment benefits are encouraging workers to stay on the sidelines. Democrats mostly blame other factors, such as a lack of child care and health concerns tied to the pandemic itself. Either way, those factors should dissipate as enhanced unemployment benefits end, schools reopen and coronavirus cases fall.But not all workers may come rushing back as the pandemic recedes. Some older workers have probably retired. Other families may have discovered they can get by on one income or on fewer hours. That could allow labor shortages to persist longer than economists expect.The simplest way to track the supply of available workers is the labor force participation rate, which reflects the share of adults either working or actively looking for work. Right now it shows plenty of workers available, although the Labor Department doesn’t provide breakdowns for specific industries.Another approach is to look at the ratio of unemployed workers to job openings, which provides a rough measure of how easy it is for businesses to hire (or, conversely, how hard it is for workers to find jobs). Data from the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey comes out a month after the main employment report, but the career site Indeed releases weekly data on job openings that closely tracks the official figures.Both those approaches have a flaw, however: People who want jobs but aren’t looking for work — whether because they don’t believe jobs are available or because child care or similar responsibilities are keeping them at home temporarily — don’t count as unemployed. Constance L. Hunter, chief economist for the accounting firm KPMG, suggests a way around that problem: the number of involuntary part-time workers. If companies are struggling to find enough workers, they should be offering more hours to anyone who wants them, which should reduce the number of people working part time because they can’t find full-time work.“The data is not necessarily going to be as informative as it would be in a normal recovery,” Ms. Hunter said. “I would not normally tell you coming out of a recession that I’m going to be closely watching involuntary part-time workers as a key indicator, but here we are.”4. WagesPrivate-sector wages and salaries, change from a year earlier

    Source: Bureau of Labor StatisticsBy The New York TimesWage growth remained relatively strong during the pandemic, at least compared with past recessions, when low-wage workers, in particular, lost ground. Many businesses that stayed open during last year’s lockdowns had to raise pay or offer bonuses to retain workers. Now, as the pandemic eases, companies are raising pay again to attract workers.The question is whether the recent wage gains represent a blip or a longer-term shift in the balance of power between employers and employees. Figuring that out will be difficult because the United States lacks a reliable, timely measure of wage growth.The Labor Department releases data on average hourly earnings as part of its monthly jobs report. But those figures have been skewed during the pandemic by the huge flows of workers into and out of the work force, rendering the data nearly useless. Economists are still watching industry-specific data, which should be less distorted. In particular, average hourly earnings for nonsupervisory leisure and hospitality workers should reflect what is happening among low-wage workers.A better bet might be to wait for data from the Employment Cost Index, which is released quarterly. That measure, also from the Labor Department, tries to account for shifts in hiring patterns, so that a rush of hiring in low-wage sectors, for example, doesn’t show up as a decline in average pay. It showed a mild uptick in wage growth in the first quarter, but economists will be paying close attention to the next release, in July.5. Everything ElseThe indicators mentioned above are hardly a comprehensive list. The Producer Price Index provides data on input prices, which often (but not always) flow through to consumer prices. Data on inventories and international trade from the Census Bureau can help track supply-chain bottlenecks. Unit labor costs will show whether increased productivity is helping to offset higher pay. Economists will be watching them all.“During normal times, you can just track a handful of indicators to know how the economy is doing,” said Tara Sinclair, an economist at George Washington University who specializes in economic forecasting. “When big shifts are going on, you’re tracking literally hundreds of indicators.” More

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    Stimulus Checks Substantially Reduced Hardship, Study Shows

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    Researchers found that sharp declines in food shortages, financial instability and anxiety coincided with the two most recent rounds of payments.WASHINGTON — Julesa Webb resumed an old habit: serving her children three meals a day. Corrine Young paid the water bill and stopped bathing at her neighbor’s apartment. Chenetta Ray cried, thanked Jesus and rushed to spend the money on a medical test to treat her cancer.In offering most Americans two more rounds of stimulus checks in the past six months, totaling $2,000 a person, the federal government effectively conducted a huge experiment in safety net policy. Supporters said a quick, broad outpouring of cash would ease the economic hardships caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Skeptics called the policy wasteful and expensive.The aid followed an earlier round of stimulus checks, sent a year ago, and the results are being scrutinized for lessons on how to help the needy in less extraordinary times.A new analysis of Census Bureau surveys argues that the two latest rounds of aid significantly improved Americans’ ability to buy food and pay household bills and reduced anxiety and depression, with the largest benefits going to the poorest households and those with children. The analysis offers the fullest look at hardship reduction under the stimulus aid.Among households with children, reports of food shortages fell 42 percent from January through April. A broader gauge of financial instability fell 43 percent. Among all households, frequent anxiety and depression fell by more than 20 percent.While the economic rebound and other forms of aid no doubt also helped, the largest declines in measures of hardship coincided with the $600 checks that reached most people in January and the $1,400 checks mostly distributed in April.“We see an immediate decline among multiple lines of hardship concentrated among the most disadvantaged families,” said H. Luke Shaefer, a professor at the University of Michigan who co-authored the study with a colleague, Patrick Cooney.Given the scale of the stimulus aid — a total of $585 billion — a reduction in hardship may seem like a given, and there is no clear way to measure whether the benefits were worth the costs.The study does not address the critics’ main complaints, that the spending swelled the deficit, that much of the money went to economically stable families who did not really need it and that the checks were part of a pattern of aid over the last year that left some people with less incentive to find jobs. Some analysts say hardship would have fallen anyway as a result of job growth and other safety net programs.Still, the aggressive use of stimulus checks coincides with growing interest in broad cash payments as a tool in social policy, and the evidence that they can have an immediate effect on the economic strains afflicting many households could influence that debate.Starting in July, the government will mail up to $300 a month per child to all but the most affluent families in a yearlong expansion of the child tax credit that Democrats want to make permanent.Ms. Ray had to contribute $600 to the cost of a CT scan for her cancer diagnosis. The stimulus check in April allowed her to afford it.Callaghan O’Hare for The New York TimesWhile the ability of cash payments to reduce hardship might seem obvious, Mr. Shaefer pointed out that critics of such aid often warn that the needy might waste it. He argued that the size, speed and variety of the hardship reductions vindicated the use of broad cash relief. While other forms of pandemic aid have been better targeted, some have taken many months to distribute and can be used only for dedicated purposes like food or housing.“Cash aid offers families great flexibility to address their most pressing problems, and getting it out quickly is something the government knows how to do,” Mr. Shaefer said. Extrapolating from the survey data, he concluded that 5.2 million children had escaped food insufficiency since the start of the year, a figure he called dramatic.The experience of Ms. Ray, a warehouse worker at a recycling company in Houston, captures the hardships that the pandemic imposed and the varied ways that struggling families have used stimulus checks to address them. Earning $13 an hour, Ms. Ray had an unforgiving budget even before business closures reduced trash collection and cut her hours by a third.Her car insurance lapsed. Her lights were shut off. She skipped meals, even with food pantry aid, and re-wore dirty work clothes to save on laundromat costs. When her daughter discovered that they owed thousands in rent, she offered to quit high school and work, which Ms. Ray forbid. A stimulus payment in January — $1,200 for the two of them — let her pay small parts of multiple bills and restock the freezer.“It bridged a gap,” Ms. Ray said, while she waited for slower forms of assistance, like rental aid.Then she got cancer. To confirm the diagnosis and guide her treatment, she had to contribute $600 to the cost of a CT scan, which she did with the help of a payment in April totaling $2,800.In addition to providing for the test, Ms. Ray said, the checks brought hope. “I really got down and depressed,” she said. “Part of the benefit of the stimulus to me was God saying, ‘I got you.’ Spiritual and emotional reassurance. It took a lot of stress off me.”Scott Winship, who studies poverty at the American Enterprise Institute, questioned the reliability of the census data used in the University of Michigan study, noting that fewer than one in 10 of the households the government contacts answer the biweekly surveys.He also argued that hardship would have fallen anyway, since the last round of stimulus checks coincided with tax season, which sends large sums to low-wage workers through tax credits. Between the earned-income tax credit and the child tax credit, a single parent with two children can receive up to nearly $8,500 a year.Researchers at Columbia University estimate that poverty fell sharply in March, but Zachary Parolin, a member of the Columbia team, said that about half the decline would have occurred without the pandemic relief, primarily because of the tax credits.Noting that the stimulus checks allocated as much to households with incomes above $100,000 as they did to those below $30,000, Mr. Winship called them inefficient and a poor model for future policy. “It’s not sustainable to just give people enough cash to eliminate poverty,” he said. “And in the long run it can have negative consequences by reducing the incentives to work and marry.”Analysts have long debated the merits of cash versus targeted assistance like food stamps or housing subsidies. Cash is easy to send and flexible to use. But targeted benefits offer more assurance that the aid is used as intended, and they attract political support from related businesses like grocers and landlords.Throughout the pandemic, policymakers have employed both approaches. The first round of stimulus checks, $1200 per adult and $500 per child last year, started before the Census Bureau surveys began, so it is harder to gauge its effect.With full eligibility extending to families with incomes of up to $150,000, the stimulus checks could reach nearly 300 million Americans. While that greatly increased the cost, Mr. Shaefer said it reduced the resentment that could accompany aid to the chronically needy and noted that hardships have expanded up the income ladder.Even among households that had prepandemic incomes of $50,000 to $75,000, more than 11 percent of those with children sometimes or often lacked food at the start of the year — a figure that has since fallen in half, according to the Census data.Ms. Ray said she had skipped meals and reworn dirty work clothes to save on laundry costs during the economic downturn.Callaghan O’Hare for The New York TimesWhen some people heard the latest checks were coming, they considered the news too good to be true. Ms. Webb, a St. Louis nursing aide with three young children, lost about two-thirds of her earnings when the pandemic left fewer patients seeking in-home care. She found another job but lost it after catching Covid. Food was the first casualty.“We’d have breakfast a little later than normal, and then dinner — no lunch,” she said. “Sometimes the kids would have dry cereal because we didn’t have milk.”Despite her skepticism, Ms. Webb received $8,000 for her four-person family between the two rounds. She used the money to pay back family loans and reduce her overdue rent, and she started serving lunch and an afternoon snack “to make sure the kids were full-full.”“I was like, ‘Woo!’ This is the most money I ever seen in my bank account,” she said. “I’m still in a hole, but I’m starting to see more sunlight now.”Mr. Shaefer acknowledged that other aid and an improving economy might have helped reduce hardship, but he said the timing pointed toward the stimulus checks. Among families with children, nearly 90 percent of the improvement in food sufficiency this year occurred in the two weeks after each round of payments.The study cited another direct link between cash aid and hardship: after the government stopped supplementing jobless benefits last fall, food insufficiency among families with children rose nearly 25 percent.“Throughout the crisis, the level of hardship faced by U.S. households can be directly linked to the federal government’s response,” Mr. Shaefer and Mr. Cooney wrote.Low-income families often emphasize the stress that economic uncertainty brings, especially when it threatens needs as basic as shelter and food. At the start of this year, 73 percent of households with children reported spending at least several days a week feeling anxious. That figure has since fallen to 57 percent, according to the census data.“I really got down and depressed,” Ms. Ray said. “Part of the benefit of the stimulus to me was God saying, ‘I got you.’ Spiritual and emotional reassurance. It took a lot of stress off me.”Callaghan O’Hare for The New York TimesBut mental health might have improved for many reasons, Mr. Winship said, including increasing vaccinations, falling disease rates and the socialization that has accompanied the reopening of businesses and schools. “I would really question whether that’s the stimulus checks,” he said.Still, research in recent decades has emphasized the debilitating effect that stress can have on children raised in low-income households. And recipients of the stimulus payments often describe them as an emotional balm.For Ms. Young, 40, the problems of poverty and poor mental health are deeply entwined. A Chicago woman with schizophrenia, she is raising a teenager and a baby on food stamps and disability checks. Extra help from adult children lapsed during the pandemic when they lost work. The result was a disconnected water line and two weeks of toting jugs from her neighbor’s apartment.“It’s really depressing, having to worry about losing your lights and water,” Ms. Young said. “Very stressful. It was a very, very dark path.”She did not receive the stimulus payment that most people got at the start of the year, for reasons she does not understand. She checked her bank account in April, to see if she could buy a loaf a bread, when she found it swollen with a $1,400 stimulus check.Ms. Young bought the bread — two loaves — and paid down her utility bills to avoid more outages. “I did it that day,” she said. “You just don’t know — it was such a relief.” More

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    Upended by the Pandemic, Haute Chefs Move Into Hotels

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    Hotels not necessarily known for fine dining are drawing award-winning chefs seeking opportunities for reinvention. Yogis and nature enthusiasts have long flocked to Ojai, a verdant mountain enclave 90 minutes north of Los Angeles — gastronomes, not so much. That changed during the pandemic, when the Ojai Valley Inn turned its sprawling, indoor-outdoor farmhouse — formally a wedding venue before the coronavirus upended plans — into a stage for a revolving cast of high-end chefs.Among the marquee names: Christopher Kostow, the executive chef of California’s three-Michelin-starred paragon of fine dining, the Restaurant at Meadowood. Located more than 400 miles to the north in Napa Valley, it burned down in a September wildfire. “That, on top of Covid, gave us this feeling like, ‘God only knows what’s going to happen next,’” Mr. Kostow said.To pay his staff, Mr. Kostow would have to set up shop elsewhere. Before the fire, he’d had the foresight to look into a Plan B outside Napa, aware that constantly shifting restrictions could keep businesses in wine country shuttered while other parts of the state were open.It turned out that Howard Backen, the same architect responsible for the plush environs of Meadowood, had also recently built the Ojai Valley Inn’s Farmhouse, equipped with an open kitchen and state-of-the-art Viking appliances. One call led to another, and Mr. Kostow and his team decided to temporarily shift their operations to Ojai, where they engineered a tasting menu of can’t-cook-this-at-home delights like “champagne-bubbled” oysters and caviar dressed with eucalyptus and broccoli.“I hadn’t been to Ojai before,” said Mr. Kostow. “It’s like what I imagine California might have been like in the 1930s: rolling hills, rustic, really bucolic.”The partnership between the Restaurant at Meadowood and the Ojai Valley Inn exemplifies an accelerating trend: in the wake of the pandemic, hotels have become havens for high-end chefs. Whether displaced by disaster, like Mr. Kostow, seeking to make up for lost revenue, wanting to explore new markets or simply craving an opportunity to try out new things, well-regarded chefs are flocking to hotels not necessarily known for their cuisine. Last year chewed up and spit out the fine-dining playbook: now, there’s an opportunity for reinvention.Christopher Kostow, the executive chef of California’s three-Michelin-starred paragon of fine dining, the Restaurant at Meadowood in Napa Valley, recently presided over sold-out dinners at the Ojai Valley Inn’s Farmhouse. Ojai Valley Inn“Serving outside on a lawn or in a space that’s not your own is not ideal, but it does make you scratch your head, like, ‘Oh, this is cool. What other cool things could we be doing?’” said Mr. Kostow, who also owns a more casual eatery, The Charter Oak, in Napa Valley. “I think the result, post-pandemic, regarding fine dining, will be more license, more fluidity. All the old rules are blown up, at this point.”“The Restaurant at Meadowood Residency” began on March 3. Over the course of five weeks, it got the culinary equivalent of a standing ovation: all 44 dinners Mr. Kostow presided over at the Ojai Farmhouse sold out, including a finale weekend of meals in May that featured wine pairings from the renowned Krug Champagne house and Harlan Estate, a famed Napa Valley producer of Bordeaux-style blends. Tickets for that dinner cost $999 per person.“They sold out within the first hour,” said Ben Kephart, the Ojai Valley Inn’s director of operations. “It’s crazy. That’s about as much as you can charge for a dinner anywhere. It shows you how much of a demand there is, and it speaks to people wanting to get out and support a venture that they feel is deserving.”One of Mr. Kostow’s March dinners in Ojai offered 13 courses, several pours of wine, and, maybe most importantly, the opportunity to dress up and people watch (from well over six feet away). It felt like the opposite of sitting on the couch, numbly chewing Postmates by the glow of Netflix. Apparently, people want that.“We could have had a month of these dinners, straight,” said Mr. Kephart. “That’s how many people tried to book them.”Besides Mr. Kostow, the Farmhouse has played host to chefs such as Nancy Silverton, the grande dame of Italian food in Los Angeles. Next month brings David Castro, the chef of Fauna in Baja California, which was recently honored by World’s 50 Best, one of the hospitality industry’s major ratings organizations, as well as Neal Fraser, the owner of the revered eatery Redbird in Los Angeles.Across the country and south of the border this summer and fall, similar guest chef-resort collaborations are in the works:Dominique Crenn’s San Francisco restaurant, Atelier Crenn, holds three Michelin stars. She will spend part of June at the Montage resort in Los Cabos, reimagining signature dishes like her geoduck tart, above, with citrus, lemongrass and verbena mousseline.Montage Los CabosDominique Crenn at Montage Los Cabos, Cabo San Lucas, MexicoDominique Crenn, whose San Francisco restaurant, Atelier Crenn, holds three Michelin stars, will move her avant-garde French feast 1,500 miles down the Pacific Coast this month, to the Montage resort in Los Cabos. For six days, beginning June 15, Ms. Crenn will serve a menu of signature favorites from her restaurant reimagined with local Baja ingredients and flavors. It’s Ms. Crenn’s way of marking her restaurant’s 10th anniversary, and as part of the celebration, she’s organizing volunteering activities in the Los Cabos community through a local organization, and encouraging dinner attendees to join her.Culinary partners Mashama Bailey, right, and Johno Morisano will preside over the southern fare served in the cushy environs of the Thompson Austin, opening soon.Adam KuehlMashama Bailey at Thompson Austin, Austin, TexasThe Bronx-born Mashama Bailey, who won a James Beard Award for best chef of the Southeast in 2019, and her culinary partner Johno Morisano will be traveling from their home base, Savannah, Ga., to Austin this summer and fall to launch two restaurants at the soon-to-open Thompson hotel, which promises guests “mid-century modern meets late-century luxury.” While the restaurants, The Diner Bar and The Grey Market, will be permanent, Ms. Bailey herself will be steering the kitchen on selected dates, to be announced.The celebrated chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten will decamp to the One&Only Palmilla in Los Cabos to spin fresh takes on the region’s seafood and steak.One&Only PalmillaJean-Georges Vongerichten at the One&Only Palmilla, San José del Cabo, MexicoGiven the popularity of Los Cabos among Americans, who make up the bulk of the region’s international tourists, and its proximity to the United States, it’s no surprise that several top-tier chefs are flocking there. From June 28 to July 2, Jean-Georges Vongerichten — who has restaurants in Shanghai, Paris, Tokyo and several other cities, in addition to his two-Michelin-star hallmark in New York — will hunker down at the One&Only Palmilla, on the Sea of Cortez. At one of the property’s restaurants, Suviche, he’ll riff on traditional sushi and ceviche, at another, he’ll see to the searing of steaks as the waves crash and recede: surf and turf, à la Jean-Georges.The Culinary Weekend Series put on by the Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Pedregal features a diverse array of chefs, seated dinners and cocktail parties, like this one, from chef Matt Zubrod’s April takeover of the property.Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos PedregalTop-tier chefs at Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Pedregal, Cabo San Lucas, MexicoThere will be no shortage of star chefs at the Waldorf Astoria in Los Cabos this year: June brings Chicago native Stephanie Izard, a multiple James Beard Award winner and the first woman to win Bravo’s “Top Chef.” In July, James Beard Award semifinalist Ronnie Killen will bring his Texas-style barbecue to the beach. October sees two more James Beard Award winning Chicagoans, Sarah Grueneberg and Mindy Segal, and in November, “Top Chef’s” Brian Malarkey will come on down from California. The Waldorf is calling it their Culinary Weekend Series and plans to continue these stints with notable chefs into 2022.The pub-inspired fare at the Mayflower Inn & Spa, above, is the work of April Bloomfield, the chef of the Michelin-starred Breslin and the now-closed Spotted Pig in New York. She has a residency at the Connecticut resort.Mayflower Inn & Spa, Auberge Resorts CollectionApril Bloomfield at the Mayflower Inn & Spa, Washington, Conn.At the Michelin-starred Breslin and the now-closed Spotted Pig, April Bloomfield presided over some of the best pub fare in New York. When the pandemic hit, she searched for an outlet to continue her craft and help her staff. She found one in the Mayflower Inn & Spa, an Auberge resort in the bucolic Connecticut countryside. Her residency began in September and will continue for the foreseeable future.“I’m excited for the next few months,” Ms. Bloomfield said, “and looking forward to growing the chef’s garden at the Mayflower this year.” She is, quite literally, putting down roots. Current menu highlights include cauliflower tikka masala and pan-roasted lamb chops with burnt satsuma and pistachio.“It’s meant a lot,” Ms. Bloomfield said of her residency. “I’ve been able to hire some of my staff from New York and therefore keep them employed. It’s been great to have them experience the country and the produce it has to offer. We feel very grateful for the experience and to be of service.”Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places list for 2021. More

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    After a shift by the C.D.C., employers withdrew mask policies that workers felt were protecting them from unvaccinated customers.The Kroger supermarket in Yorktown, Va., is in a county where mask wearing can be casual at best. Yet for months, the store urged patrons to cover their noses and mouths, and almost everyone complied. More

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    British Tourists Return to Portugal, Unleashed but (Mostly) Masked

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    Sorely in need of sun and a change of scene, British travelers returned to the newly “green-listed” country and were met by relief, exasperation — and hardly anyone.After enduring a winter of strict lockdown, and a spring that saw a gradual reopening but lousy weather to spend it in, the first British tourists to Portugal since the country was “green-listed” for quarantine-free travel were elated by the thrill of escape, even if their trips were not quite as carefree as in past summers. “We just wanted to go anywhere that wasn’t London, basically,” said the singer and songwriter Celeste Waite, 27, as she climbed a hilly street in Lisbon’s Alfama district last Saturday with Sonny Hall, 22, a model and poet.“It’s been nice finally getting back to normal,” said Karen Kaur, 35, of Kent, England, after she and Jay Singh, 38, downed shots of ginjinha, a cherry liqueur, from a street vendor in Praça da Figueira, a large square in the city’s center. But British travelers expecting a kind of pre-pandemic travel experience found something different in Lisbon during the first weekend it reopened to them. Though the Portuguese capital still offered its signature food, museums, picturesque vistas and attractions, stringent mask rules and curfews reminded visitors this would not be an unfettered escape. The opening weekend for Britons offered a preview of what a broader return to international travel may look like for others, including vaccinated Americans when they are welcomed to Europe this summer: A mixture of joy, relief, and at times awkward interactions as cultures converge after a year of disparate pandemic experiences. Tourists soak up the sun in Cascais, a coastal resort town near Portugal’s capital of Lisbon. Before the pandemic, Britons were one of the town’s top tourist markets.Daniel Rodrigues for The New York TimesPortugal has long been among Britain’s favorite tourist destinations, with scenic city escapes in Lisbon and Porto, and beachside restaurants and hotels catering to British tourists in the coastal resort town of Cascais and the Algarve, known for its alluring beaches, all within a three-hour flight. More than 2.1 million people visited from Britain in 2019, the most from any country except Spain, according to Turismo de Portugal, the national tourist board.Now, Portugal is one of Britain’s only tourist destinations. Earlier in May, Britain included Portugal on its “green list” of 12 countries and territories that residents could travel to from May 17 without quarantining for up to 10 days upon return. Most other green-listed places are either not accepting tourists or are not major destinations.A tourist passing the Casa de Santa Maria in Cascais. Britain added Portugal to its “green list,” which allowed its residents to travel there without quarantining from May 17.Daniel Rodrigues for The New York TimesPrices for flights to Portugal spiked after the announcement. But flying now means accepting expensive, and, at times, confusing extra steps, highlighting the tentative nature of international travel’s reopening. Tourists need to fill out multiple forms and submit a negative PCR test taken less than 72 hours before the flight. Before returning to Britain, they must take another test within 72 hours of their flight, and prove they have booked a third test to be taken on their second day back in Britain. The tests add up to hundreds of dollars per person, for many people exceeding the cost of the flight. Some tourists on a British Airways flight from London last Saturday said the extra steps were a pain, but they needed to get out of Britain after a difficult winter. From December to late March, the country experienced one of the world’s strictest and longest nationwide lockdowns, with socializing permitted only through walks in the cold with one other person. Pubs and restaurants didn’t open for outdoor dining until mid-April, and overnight travel within the country wasn’t permitted until last week.“No one else is going, so I’ve been rubbing it in with my friends,” said Anna De Pascalis, 23, before boarding a flight to Lisbon with her mother, Julie De Pascalis. “Everyone’s pretty jealous.” After a winter of rising coronavirus cases, Portugal has been down to a few hundred cases and single-digit deaths per day since late March. But there is a disparity in inoculations against Covid-19: About 36 percent of Portuguese people have received at least one dose of a vaccine, compared to about 57 percent of those from the United Kingdom.Tourists enjoying the view from São Jorge Castle, a popular attraction in Lisbon. A mere trickle of tourists have returned to Portugal so far compared to the hordes before the pandemic.Ana Brigida for The New York TimesSilvia Olivença, the owner of the food tour company Oh! My Cod in Lisbon, said being indoors with unmasked tourists while eating does not worry her, though she’s heard concerns from other Portuguese people that the return of foreigners could threaten Portugal’s low case numbers, despite tourists testing negative before they can fly.“You have people thinking about it, of course,” she said. But, she added: “I think people in general are quite happy to see the tourism come back.”One month ago, she would run maybe one tour per week. Now it’s up to 10 per week, with about 70 percent of her bookings from Britain, she said. In addition to British tourists, Portugal has also welcomed back visitors from the European Union. For Sara Guerreiro, who owns a ceramics shop in the Feira da Ladra flea market in the winding Alfama district, last Saturday was more of a tease of normality. Looking outside her shop, she saw maybe 10 percent of the pre-pandemic foot traffic through the twice-weekly market, which sells miscellaneous items to locals alongside artwork and trinkets to tourists.A tourist photographs the famous 28 tram in Lisbon’s historic heart, Baixa.Ana Brigida for The New York TimesBut she said Lisbon could use a better balance in how many tourists it welcomes, because “how it was before was also too much.” Overall, a mere trickle of tourists have returned to Portugal so far compared to the pre-virus hordes. Those who made the trip were able to enjoy the city as few have: without swarms of other tourists to jostle with. At the ornate Praça do Comércio, a historic square typically packed with visitors, just a few dozen lingered. You could easily take a wide-angle photo outside Belém Tower, a popular landmark, at noon on Sunday with no other people in it. The line for custard tarts at nearby Pastéis de Belém, typically an out-the-door affair, passed in a few brief minutes Sunday morning. At Tasco do Chico, renowned for its live fado music, a spot at the bar was available one minute before Saturday night’s first performance began. Belém Tower, one of the most famous monuments in Lisbon, has few tourists still. Ana Brigida for The New York TimesIn one lively scene reminiscent of pre-pandemic freedom, tourists and locals alike converged Saturday night in Bairro Alto, with bars and restaurants packed with revelers until the 10:30 p.m. curfew. Nicci Howson, 65, said she was surrounded by Portuguese people dancing in Cervejaria do Bairro, a restaurant in that neighborhood, the first time she had danced outside her home in a year.“You could see the elation on people’s faces to just let loose,” she said.At 10:30 p.m., when some Portuguese might just be sitting down to dinner in normal times, the bars closed and sent packs of people dancing and singing tightly together in the narrow streets, until they were shooed away by police on motorcycles about five minutes later. The revelers lingered in the nearby Luís de Camões Square until 11:30 p.m., when officers dispersed the group. But during the day, there were no such crowds to contend with.Mark Boulle, 38, from Oxford, England, said he typically tries to avoid crowds while traveling, so the trip was in that respect a dream. When he took a day trip to Sintra, a nearby town with postcard-ready palaces and castles, on Monday, “for the first half of the day I virtually had the whole place to myself,” he said. But he was dismayed by the widespread use of masks outdoors in Lisbon — a sharp departure from behaviors in Britain, where the government has never suggested wearing masks outside and most people do not. It was a source of tension for both visitors and the Portuguese.British tourists in Lisbon did not have competition for a prime view at the ancient São Jorge Castle. Ana Brigida for The New York TimesUsing masks outdoors is mandatory in Portugal, with violators in some locations, including beaches, facing fines. At the Castelo de São Jorge, an 11th century castle with sweeping views of the city, a security guard roamed the grounds outside, instructing the few tourists there to put masks on while standing far away from others. A bookseller at an open-air market in Baixa grumbled that the tourists ought to comply with local attitudes and customs about masks, instead of bringing their own ideas abroad.But Mr. Boulle said he wanted the sun on his face. As he went to buy his ticket at the Jerónimos Monastery, a popular tourist attraction, he recalled, a security guard stopped him before he could buy his ticket, asking him to put a mask on. Mr. Boulle replied that he has asthma, and he couldn’t wear one because he’d have trouble breathing. “That isn’t true, but I just wanted to see,” he said. “In England you can always say that.” No such luck, as the security guard insisted. Frederico Almeida, the general manager of the Albatroz Hotel in the nearby beach town of Cascais, said he and his staff has had to remind visitors from Britain of the requirements.Despite these issues, he’s happy to see British tourists again. They are the top market for the area, he said, and their return has been swift. The 42-room hotel was at about 20 percent occupancy two weeks ago; now it’s up to about 80 percent. “All of a sudden, in the last two weeks, it’s as if we’ve turned back to normality,” he said. “It’s wonderful.”THE WORLD IS REOPENING. LET’S GO, SAFELY. Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our Travel Dispatch newsletter: Each week you’ll receive tips on traveling smarter, stories on hot destinations and access to photos from all over the world. More

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    United Airlines will start a ticket lottery for vaccinated loyalty program members.

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    United Airlines is encouraging people to get vaccinated by offering them the chance to win free flights.The airline said on Monday that loyalty program members who upload their vaccination records to United’s mobile app or website through June 22 are eligible to win a round-trip flight for two “in any class of service, to anywhere in the world United flies.”The carrier will give away 30 pairs of tickets in June. On July 1, United will give five people a grand prize of travel for a year for themselves and a companion. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in April said that Americans who were fully vaccinated against the coronavirus could travel at low risk to themselves.The sweepstakes comes as the Biden administration pushes for 70 percent of adults in the United States to receive at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine by July 4. Some states and businesses have created incentives of their own: Ohio will give five people $1 million each in return for having been vaccinated as part of a weekly lottery program, and Krispy Kreme is offering one free glazed doughnut every day if those take their vaccination card to any location in the United States. More