We aren’t experts here, but we’re the best I’ve got.
What do you estimate unemployment will be in March, April and May?
If you want to justify your answers, feel free, but it isn’t necessary.
I’ll average the non-joke answers (like 25% or 0) and publish it from time to time.
If anyone wants to argue with someone else’s response, feel free to start a GD thread. Asking for reasons why someone chose a number is another matter.
I’m not giving a response since I have no clue, and because I don’t want to anchor responses to my first response.
I don’t know that 25% in three months would be a joke answer. I pull up the BLS table of Employment by major industry sector. For 2018 (revised Sept 2019) we have (in millions, rounded a bit):
~161 total jobs
~150 non-agricultural wages and salary
These look to me like the most vulnerable sectors:
~7.3 construction
~12.7 manufacturing
~6 wholesale trade
~13 retail trade
~5.4 transport & warehousing
~16.3 leisure & hospitality
If all “leisure & hospitality” work goes away and those other sectors see 50% cuts, that’s 38.5 million out of 161 million total - 24%. The insightful intestines I remotely contracted from our POTUS says that’s a bit high so I’ll go with 18-20% by June. Maybe we’ll see many “job suspensions” rather than terminations - but same-same.