A new historical dataset of state unemployment rates shows that, except for the COVID-19 recession, states in recent decades have had increasingly similar experiences in the timing and severity of downturns, according to a paper to be discussed at the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA) conference on March 29. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported monthly unemployment rates for states since January 1976. The authors of the paper--Andrew J. Fieldhouse of Texas A&M University, David Munro of Middlebury College, Christoffer Koch of Empirical Research Partners LLC, and Sean Howard of JERA Americas--developed alternative state-level unemployment rates back to January 1947 by digitizing new and continuing unemployment insurance claims from historical reports previously published by the Department of Labor and the Social Security Administration.
Authors
David Munro, Sean Howard, Christoffer Koch, Andrew J. Fieldhouse
- Acknowledgements and disclosures
- David Skidmore authored the summary language for this paper. Chris Miller assisted with data visualization.Munro received support from MiddData, a data science initiative at Middlebury College. Koch was formerly an employee of the International Monetary Fund, whose Communications Department had the right to review this work prior to publication but did not inform the findings. Other than the aforementioned, the authors did not receive financial support from any firm or person for this article or from any firm or person with a financial or political interest in this article. The authors are not currently an officer, director, or board member of any organization with a financial or political interest in this article.
- Published in
- United States of America
