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Economic Commentary
03.22.2022 |
EC 2022-04
Equal access to small-business credit is a critical underpinning to equity in economic opportunity; however, it is difficult to regularly assess the fairness of credit provision. Prior research has focused on the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Small Business Finance, but the most recent data from this source is from 2003. This article provides preliminary results on new credit access questions added to the Census Bureau’s 2021 Annual Business Survey. We find that minority-owned businesses generally were just as likely to apply for credit in 2020, but Black-, Asian-, and Hispanic-owned businesses were less likely than white-owned businesses to report receiving all of the credit that they sought. Also, Black-, Asian-, and Hispanic-owned businesses more frequently reported seeking credit in order to cover operating expenses rather than for financing capital expenditures or expansion. Heading into 2022, minority-owned businesses report weaker ongoing viability.
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Economic Commentary
12.21.2021 |
EC 2021-23
Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicate that five million jobs lost during the pandemic have not been recovered, but it is difficult to ascertain how many workers will return to available jobs. The Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey includes a detailed set of reasons for nonemployment, including households’ responses to the pandemic that provide a new perspective on reasons for not working.
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Economic Commentary
06.03.2021 |
EC 2021-14
The pandemic brought unusually large and novel changes to the US labor market. We investigate how the pandemic affected workers of different ages, racial or ethnic backgrounds, and gender and the degree to which these effects have persisted after a year of recovery.
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Economic Commentary
05.27.2021 |
EC 2021-13
We investigate the degree to which Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans reached small businesses in low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities. We find evidence that the program did have a broad reach within LMI communities, but that it reached higher-income communities to a greater extent and areas with Black, Hispanic, and American Indian or Alaska Native majorities to a lesser extent.
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Economic Commentary
04.01.2021 |
EC 2021-08
We examine the financial challenges faced by small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic and estimate the scale of loans provided to small businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program. We find that the program reached businesses throughout the economy, and we estimate that small businesses in most industry sectors received loans equivalent to between 80 percent and 120 percent of 10 weeks of their 2017 payrolls. That said, there are important differences in the distribution of funds across sectors that suggest some businesses had problems accessing loans and that a significant number of firms with more than 500 employees likely used alternative size criteria to qualify for the program.
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Economic Commentary
09.22.2017 |
EC 2017-14
The historically Midwestern manufacturing region, sometimes referred to as the "Rust Belt," faced another challenging period after 2000 when manufacturing employment declined by 1.2 million jobs. This Commentary investigates the relative economic performance of this region versus other US metropolitan areas during and following these job losses. The analysis shows that while unemployment rates have recovered in the metro areas of the industrial heartland, other economic indicators lag behind the manufacturing-intensive metro areas outside of the region.
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Economic Commentary
08.21.2014 |
EC 2014-15
New business establishments can be created by entrepreneurs opening new firms or by existing businesses opening new locations. We show that over the past 3 decades, new establishments have increasingly been provided by existing.
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Economic Commentary
06.07.2013 |
EC 2013-07
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has tied its asset purchases to a "substantial improvement" in labor market conditions.
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Economic Commentary
10.11.2012 |
EC 2012-14
Many adjustable rate mortgages in the United States are indexed to Libor.
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Economic Commentary
11.29.2011 |
EC 2011-24
Is uncertainty causing small business owners to behave in ways that are hindering the recovery? That question is at the center of an intense public debate.
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Economic Commentary
09.07.2011 |
EC 2011-17
Economists have been arguing about the connection between unemployment and inflation for decades.
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Economic Commentary
12.20.2010 |
EC 2010-18
Small businesses continue to report problems obtaining the financing they need.
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Economic Commentary
01.21.2009 |
EC 1/1/2009
Adjustable-rate mortgages have typically been tied to either of two indexes, one based on U.S. treasuries, the other on the London interbank offered rate, or Libor.
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Economic Commentary
02.15.2007 |
EC 2/15/2007
News that Cleveland’s povertyrate is the worst in the nation—and rising—has elevated thecommunity’s concern about conditionsin the city.
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Economic Commentary
08.15.2006 |
EC 8/15/2006
Even as per capita income hasincreased across the United States,differences among states’ incomesremain.
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Economic Commentary
01.01.2006 |
EC 1/1/2006
Since the 1970s, productivity growth in the manufacturing sector has outpaced the overall economy, yet the sector’s share of the workforce has declined dramatically. This leads us to ask if we are in fact engineering ourselves out of jobs. This Economic Commentary explores the relationship between productivity and employment and points out why this apparently straightforward relationship may be more complicated than it appears.
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Economic Commentary
05.15.2004 |
EC 5/15/2004
Two government surveys are used to gather information about employment in the U.S. economy, but the employment levels calculated from the surveys seem to provide conflicting pictures of the labor market.
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Economic Commentary
03.01.2003 |
EC 3/1/2003
The expansion of the 1990s began with such unexpectedly slow employment growth that commentators called it the “jobless recovery.”
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Economic Commentary
09.01.2001 |
EC 9/1/2001
This Economic Commentary confirms unusually robust productivity growth of the last few years and explores reasonable assumptions about the likely future pattern of productivity growth. These assumptions can generate substantially different productivity growth paths. Government forecasts, which guide the major tax and benefit programs, have been increased in recent years yet remain cautious.
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Economic Commentary
06.01.1999 |
EC 6/1/1999
Each month employment reports are eagerly awaited by economic analysts and small and large investors alike.
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Economic Commentary
02.01.1999 |
EC 2/1/1999
After holding at $3.35 per hour from 1983 to 1989, the minimum wage has been raised four times over the past decade, reaching $5.15 per hour in September 1997.
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Economic Commentary
07.01.1998 |
EC 7/1/1998
Productivity links the labor force to the economy’s real output, a key position that makes productivity growth one of the most eagerly forecast and analyzed economic statistics.
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Economic Commentary
06.01.1998 |
EC 6/1/1998
Optimism abounds. Just look at indicators like consumer sentiment and the stock market.
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Economic Commentary
08.15.1997 |
EC 8/15/1997
The leading explanation of why inflation has been so limited these last three years is that wage demands have been held down by an unusually high degree of “worker uncertainty.”
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Economic Commentary
03.15.1996 |
EC 3/15/1996
Employment in 1995 began with a bang and ended with a whimper, inspiring some to prognosticate a recession.
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Economic Commentary
02.01.1995 |
EC 2/1/1995
Since the end of the last recession in 1991, newspaper editorialists and other pundits have frequently complained about part-time work.
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Economic Commentary
08.15.1994 |
EC 8/15/1994
Jobs growth in the current expansion has been unusually sluggish despite coming on the heels of a relatively mild recession in 1990-91.
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Economic Commentary
02.01.1994 |
EC 2/1/1994
In recent years, U.S. service-producing industries have, on net, added jobs more rapidly than the goods-producing industries.
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Economic Commentary
05.01.1993 |
EC 5/1/1993
In his State of the Union address, President Clinton called for a broad-based energy tax to help reduce the federal budget deficit.
