As we get more data in, it seems increasingly likely that we are looking at a horrible and prolonged recession, not a complete economic collapse of Great Depression proportions. The May employment report showed a substantial bounce back in employment, with jobs up by more than 2.5 million from the April level. Retail sales had a huge 17.7 percent jump in May, by far the largest on record, although they are still 6.1 percent below the May 2019 level.
Mortgage applications also show a considerable degree of confidence about the future, with both refinancing and purchase mortgages soaring. Mortgage applications for refinancing are up more than ten-fold from year-ago levels, while purchase applications are up 268.6 percent to the highest level in more than 11 years. The latter is far more important for the economy since it implies people are buying homes, which typically lead to the purchase of new appliances and spending on renovations.
These data, and a variety of surveys of consumers and businesses, do not show an economy in collapse. At the same time, there is little reason to believe that we will see a robust rebound to anything resembling normal. We lost 22 million jobs between February and April. Even if we had seven more months adding jobs back at the May rate, we would still be down by more than 2 million jobs from the pre-pandemic level. And, we are not likely to see seven more months with job growth anything like May’s pace, without some very serious fiscal stimulus.
A new paper from Raj Chetty and co-authors provides some interesting insights on the problem the economy faces. Read more…
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