Aaron Sojourner Profile picture
Sep 24, 2020 18 tweets 7 min read Read on X
1.45 million initial state + PUA unemployment insurance claims filed in week ending 9/19, similar to prior week.

This extends a terrible streak to 27 consecutive weeks each with more UI claims than any of prior 2,776 weeks, back to record's start in 1967.
washingtonpost.com/business/2020/…
The number of Americans continuing to use UI payments is reported at 26 million. A reporting issue in CA made this higher in prior weeks.

U.S. has 6.6 million job openings.

If every opening were filled, there would be 19.4 million Americans using UI.
To get a sense of weakness in that labor market, the share of Americans in their prime working years (age 25-54) who are now employed remains 5.2 percentage points below its February level.

This level is similar to its lowest level during and after the Great Recession.
Millions of Americans worry about their ability to pay for housing.

1 in 11 Americans with a mortgage and 1 in 4 renters report no confidence or slight confidence in their own ability to make their October housing payment.

Data @uscensusbureau #HouseholdPulseSurvey
Huge shares of renters lack confidence in ability to pay October rent in Southern states, NV, NJ, RI, TX, and WY.
Substantial shares of households with a mortgage lack confidence in ability to pay October housing payment in Southern states, Dakotas, IL, WV, SC, and NY.
About 3 in 5 American adults report being employed and at work. This reflects slow improvement since spring and remains low overall.

Employment rates relatively high in the Midwest, mid-Atlantic, and New England, low in the South and Southwest.
Experiences with past & expectations of future employment income losses, and inability to make housing payments is hitting people in every racial and ethnic group and hitting Black and Hispanic Americans especially hard.

In every group, about 1 in 3 can't stop worrying most days
Households that were better off in 2019 are struggling far less than others.

Stresses are very prevalent among those who entered the crisis with the least.

However, even 2019 higher-income folks are feeling pressure. Over 15% expect employment income losses & worry chronically
At end of summer, among moms who were not working for pay or profit, abt 3 in 10 named child care responsibilities as the main reason they weren't working.

For dads not working, about 1 in 10 said child care was the main reason.

Gender the big divide, tho some race-ethn diffs.
For dads, over 1 in 4 reported being out of work mainly due to the coronavirus recession (was laid off or employer experienced a reduction in business, closed temporarily, or went out of business due to coronavirus pandemic).

For moms, this was less commonly the main reason.
Stressed household balance sheets getting more stressed.

At the end of August versus mid-July, greater shares of working-age Americans who lost employment income since the start of the crisis report that they are covering weekly expenses by spending down assets & adding debt.
Overall, 24% of Americans who applied for UI since March never received it due to an unknown mixture of administrative hassle & true ineligibility.

This differs across race-ethnicity.

White: 22%
Black: 30%
Hispanic: 24%
Other: 24%
In late August, Americans reported that they were downshifting spending or shopping patterns.

Over the prior 7 days, 56% report changing to eat less at restaurants but only 9% report changing to eat more at restaurants.

Per Census data #HouseholdPulseSurvey.
Changes were MUCH more often driven by negative than positive reasons.

35% of people changed because their usual places closed or reduced hours, versus only 9% because of re-openings or increased hours.

31% made changes due to loss of income, only 1% due to increased income.
These HPS spending change questions are new. They're meant to get people to report on how their household behavior changed *over the prior week* but I suspect many answer about changes since March.
Many questions are paired. In last 7 days, did you:
- increase in-restaurant dining?
- decrease in-restaurant dining?

A reason for changes is:
- concerns about the economy?
- no longer concerned about the economy?

I define net change as %age point increased - decreased.
States where net concern about the economy are increasing (to the right) are also states reporting a larger net decrease in-restaurant dining (to the bottom).

This is from the most recent survey, during Sept 2-14.

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More from @aaronsojourner

Jun 9, 2023
This paper is SOOOOO interesting. I love it.

They posit 3 types of Americans with different relations to the labor market. Folks in:

- primary enjoy steady work, any job search quick.

- 2ndary struggle to find jobs, move across U, E, N a lot.

- 3iary mostly out.
These bring the Dual Labor Market hypothesis home to the U.S.

Interprets short-panel linked CPS data combining:

- a hidden Markov model of observed transitions by latent type,

- a measurement model uses many rich CPS questions to assign each person type probabilities.
The primary market, estimated to represent 55% of American population, enjoys super-high LFPR/EPOP, super-low UR.

2ndary (14%): in LF 73% of time but unemployed a third of that time.

3riary (32%): out 91% of time. UR intermediate when in.

Heterogeneity that matters. Image
Read 11 tweets
May 21, 2023
Amazon warehouse mgmt uses intensive, opaque monitoring as input to discipline, pay, promotion, & firing decisions.

MN just passed a law requiring employers like them to make such standards, incentives, & data transparent to workers.

Fascinating on a few fronts... Image
No one likes working to unclear standards.

But mgmt often prefers it,⬇️some gaming &⬆️ managers' discretionary power.

Even if mgmt uses clear well-justified rules, if workers don't know them, feel arbitrary.

Mgmt says, trust us. Many workers do not.
thenation.com/article/politi…
In a workplace with new tech-enabled, intensive, high-stakes monitoring, it's interesting to see workers demand & win transparency of rules & of data.

Amazon warehouse workers in MN have actively pushed to improve working conditions for a decade @AwoodMpls. This is latest win.
Read 5 tweets
May 18, 2023
Lower-income Americans often need access to $ NOW!

Speedier payments benefit those most in need.

Instant payments, like @federalreserve’s FedNow coming July, would create billions in consumer value.

🧵my new paper w/the great @ryanmcdevitt
direct.mit.edu/rest/article-a… Image
We measure willingness-to-pay (WTP) for $ today versus $ soon.

Use transaction data from a bank that offers both bank accts (BA) & check-cashing (CC), unusual.

Usually, 2 services offered by different bizs = tough to leverage customer choices to credibly isolate WTP.
@springbankny was 1st new S. Bronx-based bank in 25 years when in 2007 when started as Check Spring Bank. Later I served on & chaired bank’s board.

Aimed to deliver financial services value to S. Bronx community, compete head-to-head with check cashiers.
spring.bank/about-us Image
Read 12 tweets
Mar 28, 2023
Wealthiest 0.1% of Americans saw 5.0% of their wealth disappear from the quarter before the Fed started hiking rates in 2022Q1 to 2022Q4

The next 0.9% saw 7% of their wealth disappear

In contrast, the least-wealthy half of Americans saw their (much smaller) wealth rise 17%
The price of Fed action to fight inflation has so far been paid mostly by wealthier Americans whose assets in stocks, crypto, & elsewhere deflated.

If Fed causes employers to start destroying jobs in the real economy, the price burden will shift dramatically.
This is how it started and the labor market has held up remarkably well. The Fed can break it though.

Hard-landing advocates claim doing so is the only way to bring down inflation.
Read 6 tweets
Jan 29, 2023
10% of America's abt 155 million employees belong to a union.

+1 percentage point a year requires +1.55 million net members if employment flat.

In 2022, union membership rose 273K, 6X smaller.
Estimated +273K from @BLS_gov worker survey. Reflects net hiring by union employers, priv (+193K) + public (+80K) sector, & new organizing inside & outside NLRB.

Abt 52K private sector workers voted to newly unionize in 2022, eyeballing @KevinReuning's NLRB data. 30X smaller.
@BLS_gov @KevinReuning The AFL-CIO's strategy aims to organize 1 million workers over 10 yrs, +100K/yr pace.

That's either 37% of the 2022 pace if it includes all change or less than 2X 2022's pace if newly unionized only.

Is this under-promising to over-deliver?
reuters.com/world/us/us-la…
Read 8 tweets

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