Thread by @eliselgould

What should we expect in tomorrow's jobs day release?

A stalled recovery.

epi.org/blog/what-to-w…
1/

After historically fast growth in May and June, July's jobs report is sure to disappoint. Because so many jobs were lost in March and April, the economy remains 14.7 million jobs short, and a full recovery even with rapid growth is many months away.
epi.org/press/two-mont…
2/

As COVID-19 has spread rapidly throughout the country, various other data released since the jobs report reference period in mid-June suggest—at best—a stalled recovery. At worst, we could see job losses for July.
3/

Whether we see a stall or outright reversal, it is clear that the bounceback in May and June is over and that the mammoth jobs gap will take years to claw back unless policy becomes much better on both the public health and economic fronts.
epi.org/blog/what-to-w…
4/

Here, I’m going to take you on a brief foray into the data that predict a very disappointing economic performance for this week’s jobs report: UI claims, the Census' pulse survey, Homebase data, and Open Table all point to a stalled (or worse) recovery.
5/

My colleague @hshierholz wrote about today's latest UI claims data for the week ending August 1. Here, I'm going to take you back a couple of weeks to the reference period for tomorrow's jobs report.
epi.org/blog/unemploym…
6/

As of mid-July, 34.3 million workers—or about 20% of the pre-pandemic workforce—were either on unemployment benefits or had applied and were waiting to see if they will get benefits. There has been no measurable improvement in these unemployment insurance numbers in weeks.
7/

Let's take a look at the #Census Bureau's Household #Pulse Survey, which has collected data since April 23 on the impact of COVID-19 on people's lives, notably asking respondents about whether they were employed in the prior seven days.
census.gov/programs-surve…
8/n

According to my analysis of the published tables from the Census Pulse Survey, employment dropped by 6.7 million from the survey week for the June jobs report to the survey week for the July jobs report. This suggests a reversal, not a slowdown, in the recovery.
9/

This reversal should not be a shock. The recovery depends entirely on success in managing the virus, which has failed spectacularly since early June. There is a strong correlation between faster growth in cases and faster declines in employment.

https://twitter.com/aaronsojourner/status/1285974132497084416

10/

More specifically, @arindube finds that these trends are driven by a slowdown in employment in states that experienced a resurgence in COVID-19 cases, namely in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, and Texas.

https://twitter.com/arindube/status/1288939189158006785

11/

Employment changes reported by Homebase have also been quite useful to uncover details on the labor market because the data are available on a daily basis for hourly workers at thousands of small businesses.
joinhomebase.com/data/
12/

Using comparable @homebase_data for June and July reference periods, Maximiliano Dvorkin and Asha Bharadwaj at @stlouisfed found that there has been a slowdown and slight reversion in employment since the week of June 12. stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy…
13/

Consistent with the findings from the Household #Pulse Survey, Dvorkin and Bharadwaj from @stlouisfed find that the states which recovered the least in that period (Arizona, Florida, and Texas) also experienced a large number of COVID-19 cases.
14/

In addition to evidence from the #pulse survey and @homebase_data, other data, such as from Open Table, demonstrate that economic activity flatlined between mid-June and mid-July, again suggesting at the very best a stalled recovery.
opentable.com/state-of-indus…
15/

Rising cases have clearly slowed the economic recovery. And, I fear, the recovery will remain stalled for quite some time if more financial support for workers, their families, and state and local governments is not forthcoming now and through the pandemic-driven recession.
16/

Awaiting the jobs report at 8:30am? My two cents.

As COVID-19 has spread rapidly throughout the country, various data released since the reference period in mid-June suggest—at best—a stalled recovery. At worst, we could see job losses in July.

epi.org/blog/what-to-w…