The U.S. economy created almost 270,000 jobs in April – that’s 40 percent higher than the average monthly job creation prior to the appearance of the Covid-19 virus. Yet, it’s not good news. Had the virus never emerged, the economy would have added 2.6 million jobs from February of 2020 until now. Instead, it lost 8.2 million. That’s a net of 10.8 million jobs missing from the U.S. economy. If the economy keeps growing at the rate it did in April, it will take over a decade to return to where it would have been had Covid-19 never happened.
Importantly, April shouldn’t have brought bad news. We lost almost all of those 2.6 million jobs in March and April of 2020. Starting in May, the economy roared back to life. We added 2.8 million jobs in May, 4.8 million in June, and another 1.6 million in July. The pace slackened starting in August, but was nonetheless robust at an average of more than 400,000 jobs per month from August through March of 2021. But what of April?
Nothing momentous happened. There was no oil embargo, no outbreak of war, no Covid-19 resurgence, no civil unrest. Sure, someone who can’t drive a ship backed up global transportation through the Suez Canal for a few days, but that was a short-lived event. What of April?
The answer lies not in what happened, but in what became a possibility. -- excerpt, rest at link above --
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
Unfrozen Cave Water Cooler
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The Unfrozen Cave
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Wed May 12, 2021 8:43 pm
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