Thread by @DianeSwonk

There are a couple things worth pointing out about the labor market. We were still 9.5 million jobs in the hole in Feb - 7.1 M in services, 1.3 mill state & local (mostly education) & 1M elsewhere. A surge in spending on goods helped recoup activity in mfg and construction.

https://twitter.com/flinty32/status/1375792512850399238

High wage job gains have not only recouped what was lost but are above prepandemic levels. That left pockets of labor shortages. Loss in immigration - largely high skill legal - exacerbated problems. Immigration fell 40% 2016-19 & hit wall in pandemic. Not easy to reverse.

The situation for low-wage workers remains much worse. The @federalreserve has cited the unemployment rate of the low quartile of wage earners at more than 20% - a depression level. The emergency aid and stimulus have - intermittently - replaced incomes but not jobs.

The number of people in poverty & hungry at year end prior to $900 billion package, was staggering. Stimulus checks not most targeted way to help those people, but given antiquated unemployment insurance (UI) systems, was only way to get $$’s out door fast enough to stem damage.

There was also fraud, which further mucked up UI. Some states also made UI especially hard to access by assuming anyone who needed it had committed a crime in becoming unemployed. There is funding for upgrades to antiquated systems in last round of aid and stimulus.

We know from studies during the pandemic that generous UI payments did not discourage people returning to work in the ways that many feared. It turns out that workers value the constant income of a job more than generous UI benefits.

But, and here’s where is gets tricky, we also learned that fear of contagion also affected people’s behavior during the pandemic. Removing that fear with vaccinations that are widespread would help alleviate that problem. Lack of health care also a hurdle if you fear infection.

This is nothing to say of the abuse many low wage essential workers suffered returning to work. It was ugly. Heath-care providers also in cross hairs. Spoke with several restaurants that couldn’t get workers back given fear their workers faced about contagion w/indoor dinning.

Also, many/some (don’t have the actual data except to know it happened) employers either couldn’t or wouldn’t provide paid sick leave for employees who got COVID or were exposed. Do know paid sick leave and paid vacation days have been on a four-decade down trend.

Now, we are opening up with vaccines ramping up and more access but we are not anywhere near herd immunity. Reluctance on uptake has waned with great data on vaccines but not there yet. Access to vaccines has also been extremely uneven. Adds to reluctance of workers to return.

This isn’t to say there are not deterrents to work as the economy opens by the larger size of supplements and stimmy checks. There are some who might prefer to wait out the summer and collect the checks instead of work. But, those hurdles are transitory; they expire in September.

The moral of the story is that this time was different on so many levels, for employers and workers. We need to look at the situation in its entirety not in isolation. Work-from-home another hurdle as it literally blinded many to the hardship millions endured.

Biggest take away - people who had least $$ hit hardest by crisis, through no fault of their own. We want people to work and be valued - the latter is too often overlooked. There are people who abuse UI systems - consciously or unconsciously. Same is true of employers.