US unemployment data fail to capture COVID-19’s full impact – here’s how to fix it fast
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed dangerous weaknesses in America’s aging public data system. In one of the greatest jobs crises in the past 100 years, the labor force measures of employment and unemployment are too slow, not local and too often unreliable and irrelevant.
The consequences are serious. Governments at all levels are trying to make decisions about how to reduce the cost of joblessness – including whether to provide supplemental unemployment benefits. And they are doing this without sufficient evidence.
On Friday, Sept. 4, the latest federal labor force report will come out, and it will not portray the extent of job loss in the communities that desperately need government help. The current system is not designed to respond to such massive shocks, but there are ways to fill t...