How the pandemic consumed the labor market

[mia]

As the novel coronavirus pandemic brought business to a halt, the pain rippled outward, blowing up sector after sector. According to a detailed analysis of unemployment claims, no industry was left untouched.

After that first chaotic week of lockdowns mid-March, as officials scrambled to slow the spread of the deadliest pandemic in more than a century, restaurants and theaters saw job losses slow while losses in other sectors, such as construction and supply-chain work, accelerated. Now, it appears the economic upheaval is hitting professional and public-sector jobs that some once regarded as safe....

State and local governments are typically required to balance their budgets. And now that they’re staring down the barrel of a huge tax-revenue shortfall, “these revenue losses are going to cause government budgets to fall and they’re going to lay people off,” Zipperer said....

The public sector used to be the bulwark that kept the economy going while the private sector pulled back during a recession, Zipperer said. “Over the last couple of recessions, the public sector hasn’t played that traditional role,” Zipperer said. “As a result, we’ve seen steeper recessions and slower recoveries.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/30/jobless-claims-industry/#comments-wrapper

[Laelth]

1. Sales taxes are regressive.

Now states are suffering because of their over-reliance on sales taxes. Let us hope that states will be forced to restructure their revenue stream away from sales taxes and toward something more stable and fair—progressive income taxes, for example.

-Laelth