IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/a00068/99126.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Will COVID-19 Erase Black Workers' Labor Market Gains?

Author

Abstract

Black workers experience what is known as a "high-beta" effect across the business cycle. They are hit harder during recessions but benefit more from the momentum of a recovery, especially during particularly strong economic periods. For three years preceding the COVID-19 recession, the United States was enjoying what has been referred to as a "hot" economy. During this time, Black workers regained some of the ground lost in labor market outcomes during the Great Recession, relative to white workers. The sudden onset of the COVID-19 recession reversed that progress. Even though the Congressional Budget Office projects the U.S. economy to regain its hot status as early as 2024, the negative impact of the COVID-19 recession could linger.

Suggested Citation

  • Julie L. Hotchkiss, 2021. "Will COVID-19 Erase Black Workers' Labor Market Gains?," Policy Hub, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, vol. 2021(2), pages 1-9, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:a00068:99126
    DOI: 10.29338/ph2021-02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.atlantafed.org/-/media/documents/research/publications/policy-hub/2021/02/17/02-will-covid-19-erase-black-workers-labor-market-gains.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.29338/ph2021-02?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Coibion, Olivier & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Kueng, Lorenz & Silvia, John, 2017. "Innocent Bystanders? Monetary policy and inequality," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 70-89.
    2. Laura Feiveson & Nils M. Gornemann & Julie L. Hotchkiss & Karel Mertens & Jae W. Sim, 2020. "Distributional Considerations for Monetary Policy Strategy," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2020-073, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:fip:a00001:90108 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Felipe Alves & Christian Bustamante & Xing Guo & Katya Kartashova & Soyoung Lee & Thomas Michael Pugh & Kurt See & Yaz Terajima & Alexander Ueberfeldt, 2022. "Heterogeneity and Monetary Policy: A Thematic Review," Discussion Papers 2022-2, Bank of Canada.
    3. Edward P. Herbst & Benjamin K. Johannsen, 2020. "Bias in Local Projections," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2020-010r1, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), revised 04 Jan 2021.
    4. Schnorpfeil, Philip & Weber, Michael & Hackethal, Andreas, 2023. "Households' response to the wealth effects of inflation," SAFE Working Paper Series 400, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    5. Mark Edem Kunawotor & Godfred Alufar Bokpin & Patrick O. Asuming & Kofi A. Amoateng, 2022. "The distributional effects of fiscal and monetary policies in Africa," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 24(1), pages 127-146, June.
    6. Ampudia, Miguel & Ehrmann, Michael & Strasser, Georg, 2023. "The effect of monetary policy on inflation heterogeneity along the income distribution," Working Paper Series 2858, European Central Bank.
    7. Alina K. Bartscher & Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick & Paul Wachtel, 2022. "Monetary Policy and Racial Inequality," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 53(1 (Spring), pages 1-63.
    8. Yoosoon Chang & Soyoung Kim & Joon Y. Park, 2025. "How Do Macroaggregates and Income Distribution Interact Dynamically? A Novel Structural Mixed Autoregression with Aggregate and Functional Variables," Working Papers No 01/2025, Centre for Applied Macro- and Petroleum economics (CAMP), BI Norwegian Business School.
    9. Adrien Auclert, 2019. "Monetary Policy and the Redistribution Channel," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(6), pages 2333-2367, June.
    10. Can Sever & Emekcan Yucel, 2021. "Electoral Cycles in Inequality Abstract:," Working Papers 2021/01, Bogazici University, Department of Economics.
    11. Bennani, Hamza, 2023. "Effect of monetary policy shocks on the racial unemployment rates in the US," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 47(1).
    12. Zhang, Muyang & Zhou, Guangsu & Fan, Gang, 2020. "Political Control and Economic Inequality: Evidence from Chinese Cities," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    13. Casiraghi, Marco & Gaiotti, Eugenio & Rodano, Lisa & Secchi, Alessandro, 2018. "A “reverse Robin Hood”? The distributional implications of non-standard monetary policy for Italian households," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 215-235.
    14. Lee, Seungyoon & Park, Jongwook, 2022. "Identifying monetary policy shocks using economic forecasts in Korea," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    15. Dusan Stojanovic, 2023. "Quantitative Easing in the Euro Area: Implications for Income and Wealth Inequality," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp760, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    16. Marc Anderes & Alexander Rathke & Sina Streicher & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2021. "The role of ECB communication in guiding markets," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 186(3), pages 351-383, March.
    17. Garriga, Carlos & Kydland, Finn E. & Šustek, Roman, 2016. "Nominal rigidities in debt and product markets," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86223, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Michael Weber, 2022. "Monetary Policy Communications and Their Effects on Household Inflation Expectations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(6), pages 1537-1584.
    19. Asger Lau Andersen & Niels Johannesen & Mia Jørgensen & José-Luis Peydró, 2020. "Monetary policy and inequality," Economics Working Papers 1761, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Mar 2021.
    20. Battistini, Niccolò & Falagiarda, Matteo & Hackmann, Angelina & Roma, Moreno, 2025. "Navigating the housing channel of monetary policy across euro area regions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    21. Cynthia Doniger, 2019. "Do Greasy Wheels Curb Inequality?," 2019 Meeting Papers 1163, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    labor market disparities; labor market gaps; unemployment; racism; hysteresis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:a00068:99126. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Robert Sarwark (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbatus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.