Thread by @JedKolko

Let's be clear: permanent unemployment is still rising.

Temporary unemployment spiked in April and dropped in May. It's huge and is driving the headline unemployment rate. But strip that out, and the picture looks very different.

1/

Some (hopefully most!) of this economic crisis is temporary. The critical question is how much of the job losses and business closures become permanent.

So we need to track permanent measures alongside the headline numbers.

Fortunately, @BLS_gov makes this easy.

2/

The good news in the May household report:
* temporary unemployment down
* part-time for economic reasons down

The bad news:
* permanent unemployment up
* marginally-attached workers up

3/

The BLS series ID's make it possible to construct alternative measures. To construct a measure that highlights what's permanent, I decided to:

* exclude temporary unemployment
* include marginally attached
* not add PTER, since much of that might be temporary

4/

In effect, that yields the U-5 measure, excluding temporary unemployment from the numerator. But you could make other reasonable choices -- e.g. start with U-6 instead of U-5, leave out re- and new-entrants, drop marginally attached.

5/

But the main point is:
Permanent unemployment climbed in March, April, and May. The number of "permanent job losers" is up 79% in the last three months.

Summary table here:
bls.gov/news.release/e…

This is no time to be complacent about the labor market.

6/end