Below is a chart and brief excerpt from today's Early Look written by Macro Analyst Christian Drake.
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Consensus is at 4.5M, which would bring the 5-week total since the hard stop disruption in domestic activity to 26.5M – a profoundly tragic total that implies a complete wipe out of cumulative post GFC employment gains in just over a month. In fact, as can be seen in the Chart of the Day below, it effectively wipes out 22 years of gains, taking employment back to 1998 levels! Yes, many of those are furloughed workers who still have benefits and can be re-onboarded quickly but many will not. I know the coverage around this has been ubiquitous and desensitizing but take a moment to internalize the gravity of those losses. The speed and scale of lost livelihood and collective consumption capacity is, simply, staggering. |
