Black and White Differences in the Labor Market Recovery from COVID-19

Fatih Karahan and Laura Pilossoph

No 20210209c, Liberty Street Economics from Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Abstract: The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the various measures put in place to contain it caused a rapid deterioration in labor market conditions for many workers and plunged the nation into recession. The unemployment rate increased dramatically during the COVID recession, rising from 3.5 percent in February to 14.8 percent in April, accompanied by an almost three percentage point decline in labor force participation. While the subsequent labor market recovery in the aggregate has exceeded even some of the most optimistic scenarios put forth soon after this dramatic rise, the recovery has been markedly weaker for the Black population. In this post, we document several striking differences in labor market outcomes by race and use Current Population Survey (CPS) data to better understand them.

Keywords: pandemic; COVID-19; unemployment; labor force participation; race; heterogeneity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E3 I14 J01 J20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-02-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
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