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Justin Wolfers

@JustinWolfers

15 Sep

The vax mandate solves a collective action problem:

Businesses want to vax their staff to provide a safe workplace. But they’re each worried that if they move first, they’ll lose staff to their rivals (who probably also want vaxxed staff). Mandating the vax solves this problem.

Point is in many industries all of the major players want fully vaccinated staff, but none wants to bear the political heat of announcing this first. Result: None of them require it even if all of ‘em want to.

The mandate solves the problem of waiting for a first mover to emerge

The vax mandate only applies to large employers, and so may be a competitive advantage for large companies, because customers know they’ll be safe there. Small businesses who do have vaccinated staff need a way to signal that they’re just as safe.

Read 6 tweets

Justin Wolfers

@JustinWolfers

10 Sep

Viewing Biden's vaccine mandate as simply economic policy, it's surely the cheapest and most powerful economic stimulus ever enacted.

Lemme explain: Covid is a tax -- a tax on all in-person interactions, paid not with dollars but with lives. Vaccinations are a tax cut, and your shot cuts both your your covid tax, and your neighbors taxes, too. More jabs = a bigger tax cut, which will boost the service sector.

The reason that cutting the covid tax is such a cheap stimulus, is that this is one of the few tax cuts that doesn't actually reduce government revenue. Indeed, it probably boosts revenue: People are more likely to work when they feel safe, which boosts the government coffers.

Read 5 tweets

Justin Wolfers

@JustinWolfers

6 Aug

BOOM! Payrolls growth of +943k in July, and unemployment down from 5.9% to 5.4%, and that's what a robust jobs report looks like.

Pretty helpful revisions add another +119k to May/June.
Volatility is a thing, so better to focus on the three month average of jobs gains running at +801k per month, which is pretty great, but also pretty necessary given the depth of the hole we're in.

Household survey shows employment grew +1,043k in July, roughly confirming the payrolls numbers.

Unemployment fell a lot because more people got jobs. Participation actually rose a tick (though it has further to go).

Read 11 tweets

Justin Wolfers

@JustinWolfers

7 May

U.S. payrolls grew by +266k, which would be fabulous in normal times, but is utterly disappointing at a moment in which forecasters expected +1 million jobs, and we’re still missing millions of pre-pandemic jobs.

This is a big miss that changes how we think about the recovery.

Unemployment is stuck at 6.1%, well above the pre-pandemic rate of 3.5%, and that’s despite the fact that millions are still not looking for work.

We are still 8 million jobs below pre-pandemic levels, or about 10 million jobs below where we would have been if pre-covid trends had continued. That’s why we need much faster job growth.

There are millions in need, an economy that remains sick, and a recovery that’s ailing.

Read 8 tweets

Justin Wolfers

@JustinWolfers

8 Jan

In December the U.S. economy lost -140,000 jobs, and THE RECOVERY HAS STALLED JUST LIKE I WARNED.

We lost 22 million jobs in Feb & March, then regained half of them, and now we've stalled, with the economy in a deeper jobs hole than the darkest days after the financial crisis.

The glimmer of good news here (and it's only a glimmer) is that October and November were stronger than we thought, and revisions added +135k to those months.

But there's no way around the depressing fact that the economy is in a hole as deep or deeper than anything following the financial crisis, the mechanical bounceback is behind us, and further progress has stalled.

Read 13 tweets

Justin Wolfers

@JustinWolfers

4 Dec 20

Payrolls in November rose a mere +245k. That's the sort of number you might see in a "normal" month, and definitely not what you're hoping for in the snapback from a covid-induced shutdown.

THE RECOVERY IS STALLING.

Remember, the economy lost 22 million jobs, then gained roughly half of them back.

We still have 10 million fewer jobs than we did in February. Clawing the rest back at +245k per month will take basically forever. If this is the second half of the recovery, it's going to be grim

The dramatic ups and downs of recent months might hide the real story here: The economy is in a deep hole -- as deep as in the darkest days following the financial crisis -- and the recovery is faltering. Barely there. Making no progress. Stalled. Stopped.

Read 14 tweets

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