Low short rates, however, also benefit savers, like all other households, via an indirect effect — that is, the reduction in their unemployment rate and the increase in their labour income. The indirect effect dominates from a quantitative perspective. In addition, through the reduction of the unemployment rate of poorer households, the indirect effect reduced income inequality.
On the whole, these results support the finding that monetary policy in recent years benefited most households and did not contribute to an increase in wealth, income or consumption inequality.4 This debate illustrates that we need increasingly precise ways to measure wealth in order to foster a more informed public debate about the effects of various policies and other factors on the distribution of wealth.