Most states, businesses, families, and individuals spent the pandemic walking on the edge of a jagged economic cliff. Luckily, there were some guardrails in the form of fiscal recovery funds, disaster loans, paycheck protection, and childcare grants. These devices helped pull thousands back from the edge.

But now, with the pandemic emergency over, the cliff is still in sight, but the guardrails are gone. Without them, will states, businesses, and others tumble over the economic cliff? The answer may depend on how they used those guardrails during the pandemic.

The third quarter of 2023 continues the venture capital market’s recent two-year decline in investments, investors, and initial public offerings. This puts a squeeze on startups.

Last week (Jan. 3), Maryland’s state comptroller released the state’s first State of the Economy report.

Setting aside multibillion fraud and the large black market economy, cryptomining inflicts pain to society in quieter ways as well, research found.

Every year, inadequate childcare causes the US economy to take a $122B hit, according to a study by an economist at the University of Pennsylvania. This economic hit affects everyone—workers, businesses, and taxpayers. Parents lose income when they miss work to take care of a child. Businesses suffer from lower productivity when employees are absent.

The dynamics of population growth in the U.S. changed during the pandemic. As people migrated away to avoid the limitations of the pandemic, one region’s population loss was another region’s gain. Now, economists are analyzing the impact of migration on local economies.

Even employing a “conservative estimate of spillover jobs”, the Progressive Policy Institute’s updated report on employment related to the App Economy works out to just over one job per published application. Total January 2022 employment reported in PPI’s U.S. App Economy Update, 2022, was estimated at 2.564 million jobs. While up 1.7 percent from the August 2020 update, the figure is only nominally higher than the cited 2.1 million apps launched in 2021 alone.

Almost 40% of American adults report they struggle to make ends meet each month, an increase from 34.4% in 2022 and 26.7% in 2021. At 46.2%, Louisiana had the highest percentage reporting financial struggles followed by Mississippi (45.7%) and Arkansas (45.6%). Additionally, 11.3% of adults in households in the U.S. experienced some or very frequent times when they did not have enough to eat from April 26 through May 17, 2023. That percentage fell below the national average in 24 states, with Louisiana weighing in with more people (15.6%) going hungry than anywhere else.

The 2020 pandemic was unique when it came to changes in the labor market. Unlike in previous recessions, most layoffs from the pandemic were temporary. While employment is back to pre-pandemic levels, the recovery has been uneven across states and industries, leaving some states still with a deficit while others have grown past 2019 levels.

Greater investment in basic scientific research, as opposed to applied research, is more likely to drive stronger long-term economic growth, induce a knowledge spillover effect, increase productivity ROI, and encourage more public-private collaboration, according to a group of economists at the International Monetary Fund.

Crystal ball forecasts and predictions are growing about the long term impact of the pandemic on U.S. manufacturing, trade and overall global supply chains. The abruptness of the shutdowns within so many countries’ economies, the resulting scarcities of goods, and millions of furloughs and pink slips has generated cause for economic analysts, policy wonks and consumers to study the effect of disruption on global value chains.

Alabama is the latest state that is embracing innovation as a way to grow the state’s economy. On May 19, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed legislation that grew from two top priority measures of the Alabama Innovation Commission — proposals discussed between SSTI and commission members in a meeting earlier this year.

As the shock of the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic settled and the extent of the economic impact began to become clearer, states are developing creative and long-term plans and programs to breathe life back into their economies. States initially focused federal funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act towards the urgent public health needs of responding to the unfolding crisis and to mitigating the impacts of mandatory business closures.

More than half of the nation’s governors have given their State-of-the-State addresses, and in this week’s coverage of the addresses, we complete our review of those that addressed their constituencies through January. As the COVID-19 crisis highlighted the need for greater broadband connectivity and affordability, we again see the state leaders focusing more attention on building out those capabilities. Diversifying state economies also plays a role in Alaska, Hawaii and New Mexico, while opportunities for development through renewables features in addresses from Nevada and New York.

Falling demand for office real estate and public transit, greater need for flexible child care and requirements for reskilling are some of the insights gained into the future of Massachusetts’ workforce.

New York City and the state of Illinois have both made moves recently to shift more of their economies to clean energy.

This edition of Useful Stats takes a high-level look at the United States’ change in Real Gross Domestic Product (RGDP, which is GDP adjusted for inflation) on a per capita basis for each of its counties, boroughs, parishes, etc. (hereon referred to as “counties”). Looking at RGDP per capita allows for an inflation adjusted, population standardized metric for comparing counties over time.

In an effort to help to determine the economic impact of higher education institutions and hospitals within their regions and how reliant these regions are on these “anchor institutions” to drive their economy, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia developed an Anchor Economy Initiative. It recently published an

Pennsylvania is losing ground in expanding manufacturing opportunities in the state, according to the Pennsylvania Manufacturing Advisory Council, which has issued a playbook to help build the sector’s competitiveness and highlights recommendations for the state to increase its manufacturing opportunities. 

Why the U.S. Economy Needs More Consolidation, Not Less, a recent paper from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), explains from an economics perspective the advantages of scale economy for improving an industry’s overall efficiency and productivity. Not all industries see significant economies of scale as firms grow, ITIF research points out.