Who Has COVID-19 Impacted and What’s Been Done to Help?

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports the unemployment rate monthly. Generally, it gives an idea of the number of Americans who are out of work and looking for new employment. During times of economic stress, however, this metric may not paint a full picture of those who are out of work. Headline unemployment numbers can be misleading, and the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the accuracy of the picture painted by the headline unemployment numbers. For instance, the October jobs report from the BLS identified 11.1 million unemployed workers, or 6.9 percent unemployment. But this number—the traditional unemployment rate, or U-3—includes only those workers who are out of work and actively searching for a job. Some consider the U-6 unemployment rate to be more representative of the labor market’s status, even during periods of economic growth. The U-6 unemployment rate includes discouraged workers (those who have been out of work for at least a year but have not searched for work in the last four weeks), people working part-time who would rather be working full-time, and people without a job who may be in school or are no longer searching for a job due to a disability. According to the October jobs report, the gap between traditional U-3 unemployment and the U-6 rate increased from 3.3 percent to 8.1 percent between January and April. While this gap has narrowed to 5.2 percent, U-6 unemployment is still well over 10 percent. The workers in this category would not be included in unemployment claims or the headline unemployment number often used to characterize a recovery. The pandemic has done more than discourage workers from job searches. It has shifted the responsibilities of a large section of the labor force: people caring for children or family members—mothers and women, in particular. Women have dropped out of the labor force at a faster rate than men since the start of the pandemic. Compared to October of 2019, the labor force has 2 million fewer women—almost 1 million more than the drop in the male labor force. The RAND Corporation analyzed the change in labor force participation by gender and by number of children. In most family structures, women dropped out of the labor force more often than men, with the largest decline in women with two-child households.