As the United States economy begins to recover from the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and states begin lifting restrictions on business activity, it is important to understand that each state is experiencing different labor market conditions and that the road to recovery will be more arduous for the regions…

COVID-19 has had an impact on virtually every aspect of society but very few industries have been harder hit than air travel. As nation after nation instituted travel restrictions and skittish travelers began canceling booked flights, airlines had no choice but to ground large numbers of their planes. One method…

With election season heating up, I recently became interested in historical polling data. The great people over at FiveThirtyEight have compiled polling averages of every presidential election from 1968 to 2016 and made it available for download on their GitHub page. https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/data/blob/master/polls/pres_pollaverages_1968-2016.csv A file with that much data is a…

“A poll is a snapshot in time.” Pollsters have always been cognizant of this mantra and the best ones treat it like gospel. Until the ballots are cast, voter preferences can change based on news coverage, candidate debates, and other events. What better recent example of this lesson than the…

As protests against police brutality and systemic racism have spread throughout the nation, the inequities present in our economy for Black Americans have become an important and long unaddressed focal point. On virtually every substantial economic statistic, Black Americans are not only worse off than white Americans, but have made…

In a consumer driven economy like the one in the United States, the monthly retail sales report released by the U.S. Census Bureau plays an important role in understanding consumer behavior. To no one’s surprise, the COVID-19 shutdowns have had a profoundly negative effect on retail sales data. Monthly retail…

While many non-essential businesses have begun to open around the country, there have been anecdotal images of crowds huddled together at bars, pools, and casinos in scenes that were considered unthinkable a few weeks ago. To what degree do these images reflect the broader American population and their willingness to…

The National Bureau of Economic Research recently declared that we entered a recession in February 2020 but also cautioned that the unique qualities of this contraction may end up making it a much briefer episode than downturns of the past. Many leading indicators are pointing to a bottoming process in…