Over those two years, the debt‑to‑GDP ratio rose by almost 25 percentage points, to over 130 per cent, against an average increase of less than 15 points in euro‑area countries, to around 95 per cent.
The support given in the United States had an astonishing effect on households’ disposable income, which, in 2020, recorded its highest rate of growth since the mid-1980s, with a 6.2 per cent increase in real terms, against a drop in GDP of 3.4 per cent.