Wow, the *direction* of job growth this morning was a wonderful surprise. But our jobs *level* remains in absolute crisis. In May, we added 2.5 million jobs. But in March and April, we lost 22 million, so we are still down 19.6 million jobs. 1/
One deeply concerning thing is that we lost another 571,000 state and local government jobs in May, for a total of 1.6 million state and local government jobs lost in the last three months—*nearly half* of them in local government education (that’s basically public K-12). 2/
The official unemployment rate in May was 13.3%, a welcome improvement from April, but *aside* from April, still worse than anything we’ve seen since the Great Depression. 3/
And, the unemployment rate is not reflecting all coronavirus-related job losses. In fact, only about two-thirds of people who remain out of work as a result of the virus are showing up as unemployed. 4/
About 15% (4.9 million) of those out of work because of the virus are being misclassified—they have been furloughed and should be counted as unemployed and on temporary layoff, but are instead being counted as “employed but not at work.” 5/
Roughly a fifth (6.6 million) of those out of work because of the virus are being counted as having dropped out of the labor force. This is because jobless people are only counted as unemployed if they are actively seeking work, which remains impossible for many. 6/
If all the 32.5 million workers who are out of work as a result of the virus had shown up as unemployed, the unemployment rate would have been 19.7% in May instead of 13.3%. 7/
I’m going to take a minute to talk about how these #JobsDay numbers fit into the current context of the police murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and more. These murders are rooted in this country’s long history of white supremacy. 8/
Our history—and present—of white supremacy dramatically affect the labor market. Because of things like occupational segregation, discrimination, & other disparities rooted in systemic racism, recessions hit Black workers harder than white workers. 9/ epi.org/publication/bl…
These #JobsDay numbers highlight the damage of the coronavirus ression—a recession that has caused greater job loss in black households than white households and that will, as a result, exacerbate existing racial inequalities. 10/
In May, the white unemployment rate improved from 14.2% to 12.4%, but the Black unemployment rate did not improve (it ticked up from 16.7% to 16.8%). Our recovery is already showing signs of being deeply inequitable. 11/
The Hispanic unemployment rate is the highest of any race or ethnicity reported in these numbers, at 17.6% in May. 12/
It’s good news that both men and women saw unemployment declines in May, but the unemployment rate for women, at 14.5%, remains higher than the unemployment rate for men, 12.2%. 13/
And for Black and Hispanic women, unemployment rates are even higher. The unemployment rate is 17.2% for Black women and 19.5% for Hispanic women (note, these rates are only available on a not-seasonally-adjusted basis). 14/
This chart has three-month changes in employment by industry. Employment is still down across the entire economy, with huge holes in leisure and hospitality, education and health services, professional and business services, retail trade, and government. 16/ 
Many people who have hung on to their jobs in this crisis have seen their hours cut. The number of workers who want full-time hours but are working part-time b/c their employer doesn’t have enough work for them has more than tripled, from 2.7 mil in Feb to 9.4 mil in May. 17/
Some are saying that today’s numbers mean Congress doesn’t need to do more. This is deeply misguided. If we get the same level of job growth we did in May for the *next three months,* we will still be down more than 12 million jobs. 18/
Of the 21 million officially unemployed, 73.1% report they expect to be called back to their job. If you count all those who are out of work because of the virus (32.5 million), 62.3% expect to be called back. This is clearly an upper bound on who could be called back. 19/
Whether these workers will actually be called back or whether a huge share of those furloughs turn into permanent layoffs hinges on what federal policymakers do now. 20/
If federal policymakers provide enough aid to state and local governments, individuals, and businesses so that confidence and demand are high as the economy reopens, *then* many of those furloughed workers will have jobs to go back to. 21/
The relief and recovery packages passed so far are not enough, and more aid is crucial. The next package must provide a huge amount of aid to state and local governments, without which real recovery from this recession will be delayed for *years.* 22/ epi.org/blog/a-prolong…
The next package should invest in unemployment insurance, including extending the across-the-board $600 increase in weekly benefits well past its expiration at the end of July. 23/ epi.org/blog/the-extra…
A CBO report from yesterday shows how important the extra $600 is in stimulating the economy. 24/
Perhaps most importantly given today's report, *we can't turn off federal relief too early.* The expiration of relief provisions must be tied to actual economic conditions. 25/
Automatic triggers (where provisions phase out as the unemployment rate falls or the employment-to-population ratio rises) would alleviate the very real threat that we turn off federal aid when the economy is still *extremely* weak, like it is now, hamstringing the recovery. 26/
And if jobs keep roaring back and we are near pre-recession levels quickly? Excellent! With automatic stabilizers, aid would simply turn off, done and done. 27/
One thing I neglected to mention in all this is the fact that average wages have grown sharply year-over-year. This is NOT good news. I'ts because low-wage workers have seen much more job loss (i.e. it’s composition, not people getting big raises.) 28/
One question I’m getting is why there was such a difference between unemployment insurance (UI) claims and today’s jobs numbers. It’s a good question—between the April and May survey periods for the jobs numbers, “continuing” UI claims rose by more than 10 million. 29/
Some of the increase in UI claims could have been the result of agencies working through backlogs. Also, the UI data are only about layoffs—they don’t take into account the fact that *hiring* likely picked up as businesses re-opened in many places. 30/
Another thing. As I said earlier, 32.5 mil people are out of work as a result of the virus, & of those, 62.3% expect to be recalled. Many likely won't, but if they all do, that's still 12.2 mil people out of work as a result of the virus w/ ZERO expectation of being recalled. 31/
