The economy is sending up alarms across the map, showing how the pandemic’s resurgence is dragging a fledgling rebound back into a skid.  Economists are watching a raft of real-time data measuring everything from credit card spending to the extent to which people are venturing from home as the crisis remains too fluid to judge solely by traditional indicators of stress. Their analysis depicts a recovery that peaked a month ago. The weeks since have seen an uptick in businesses closing permanently, a drop-off in consumer spending; and layoffs reaching into white-collar sectors that have typically proven more recession-proof.

The upshot, economists warn, is likely a longer slog out of a deeper hole — and more permanent scarring. “It’s not just the regulations forcing a rollback, not just increased fear among consumers, and not just the deteriorating public health situation,” Oxford Economics chief U.S. economist Gregory Daco tells me. “It’s a combination of all these factors, and we’ve seen them all taking hold over the last four weeks.”

In the immediate term, many now see rising chances for employment rolls to shrink this month, after posting two months of job growth in May and June. 

By mid-July, there were about 6.7 million fewer Americans on the job than a month earlier, according to the Household Pulse Survey, a weekly poll the Census Bureau debuted this spring. The latest installment found employment dropped by 4.1 million in just the past week. Via former Obama Treasury Department economist Ernie Tedeschi:

Posted in: USA