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Discussion Paper
Long COVID, Cognitive Impairment, and the Stalled Decline in Disability Rates
Long COVID encompasses a suite of long-term symptoms that commonly include fatigue, shortness of breath, and so-called brain fog, along with many others. Individuals with long-term symptoms may be unable to work (or work full-time) as a result of their condition, and there is growing speculation that long COVID may be restraining labor supply.
Working Paper
Reconciling Unemployment Claims with Job Losses in the First Months of the COVID-19 Crisis
In the spring of 2020, many observers relied heavily on weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits (UI) to estimate contemporaneous reductions in US employment induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Though UI claims provided a timely, high-frequency window into mounting layoffs, the cumulative volume of initial claims filed through the May reference week substantially exceeded realized reductions in payroll employment and likely contributed to the historically large discrepancy between consensus expectations of further April-to-May job losses and the strong job gains reflected in ...
Discussion Paper
Why Have Initial Unemployment Claims Stayed So High for So Long?
As the labor market recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, claims for unemployment insurance (UI) have been surprisingly slow to return to conventional levels. As recently as 2021Q1, initial claims for regular UI benefits averaged nearly 800,000 per week (see Figure 1)—more than twice as many as were observed at a comparable point during the recovery from the Great Recession.
Discussion Paper
The Persistent Urban Shortfall in Leisure and Hospitality Employment
As a high-contact service sector with limited capacity for remote work, the US leisure and hospitality sector—which includes restaurants, bars, hotels, museums, and movie theaters—was hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first two months of the pandemic, leisure and hospitality lost over 8 million jobs, nearly half its employment (Figure 1, solid red line).