3 See Robert W. Fairlie (2020), “The Impact of COVID-19 on Small Business Owners: Evidence of EarlyStage Losses from the April 2020 Current Population Survey,” NBER Working Paper Series 27309 (Cambridge, Mass. : National Bureau of Economic Research, June), https://www.nber.org/papers/w27309.pdf. 2  -4improvements are likely behind us.
As can be seen in the right panel of Chart 6, the year-onyear rate of change in nominal wages has been negative since April 2020. In particular, it saw a larger decline again at the end of 2020, primarily reflecting a decrease in special cash earnings; how this will affect future consumption is a matter of concern.