Cecilia Elena Rouse

“ While the official unemployment rate for women is just below that for men, once adjusted it is higher for women than it is for men reflecting how many more women have exited the labor force entirely. The labor force participation rate for women 20 years and over is down 2.2 percentage points relative to February 2020, compared to a decline of 2.0 percentage points for men. ”

“ This morning’s jobs report shows an acceleration in job growth in February and an upward revision to January’s job growth. However, the economy remains down 9.5 million jobs from February 2020 and will require more than two years of job growth at February’s pace just to get back to pre-pandemic levels. ”

“ This remains 2.7 percentage points above the rate in February 2020, before the pandemic sent many workers home and shuttered businesses and schools. Over this same time period, more than 4 million workers have dropped out of the labor force. Accounting for labor force dropouts and misclassification issues related to BLS’s survey questions would result in an unemployment rate around 9.5 percent. This is not to say the headline unemployment rate is wrong, simply that in a pandemic, getting a full view of the economy requires looking at the data in multiple ways. ”