After an initial “V”-shaped recovery, national employment growth has tapered off and is well below the pre-COVID levels.
Unemployment is coming down from the COVID-19 spike in the spring of 2020, but it is still high, and current proposed fiscal policy is likely to make the situation worse.
Labor force participation is still low as thousands of small businesses are unable to re-open and workers have become discouraged and simply dropped out of the labor force.
Further evidence of the continued struggle is the fact that the number of people who have been unemployed for more than 27 weeks continues to rise…
….and initial claims for unemployment are still VERY HIGH by historical standards.