2019 - low inflation and unemployment and 2 million jobs created
Pandemic
2020 - drop in demand results in huge layoffs and drop in household spending translates into a sharp rise in unemployment - more than 9 million jobs lost - and a drop in inflation along with demand.
2021
Worst year for COVID deaths and yet - as more Americans are vaccinated - economy opens back up. Inflation spikes while the economy creates a record number of jobs, bringing unemployment back down to below 4%.
Recovery
2022
Recovery begins in earnest. The rate of job creation is still higher than any year on record - except for 2021. With the economy so strong and demand so high, inflation begins to drop but is still high.
Normalization
2023
COVID deaths now - like flu - are part of annual death toll. By yearend, unemployment had been at a sub-4% level for longest stretch since the 1960s. As job creation slows, inflation slowly falls back to a normal range (but still roughly one point higher than pre-pandemic.)
2024
The economy - and society more broadly - absorbed an historic spike in loss of life and jobs for a couple of years and has largely returned to normal. It is hard to imagine that it could have turned out much better. Easy to believe that it could have turned out much worse. (The economy has never before created more than 7 million jobs in a single year - or even 5 million jobs for that matter. This recovery - getting back to unemployment below 4% - could have easily taken years longer.)
The only comparable wave of death and economic contraction was the Spanish flu in 1918 and after, the recovery from which was a contributing factor to the roaring '20s. There is a very real possibility that these 2020s will represent another roaring 20s.
The economy - and society more broadly - absorbed an historic spike in loss of life and jobs for a couple of years and has largely returned to normal. It is hard to imagine that it could have turned out much better. Easy to believe that it could have turned out much worse. (The economy has never before created more than 7 million jobs in a single year - or even 5 million jobs for that matter. This recovery - getting back to unemployment below 4% - could have easily taken years longer.)
The only comparable wave of death and economic contraction was the Spanish flu in 1918 and after, the recovery from which was a contributing factor to the roaring '20s. There is a very real possibility that these 2020s will represent another roaring 20s.
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