DEED’s New Data Tool Demonstrates the COVID-19 Pandemic Recession Remains Unique from Past Recessions

The art and science of economics consistently uses models to predict the future. In downturns, we look to past recessions to try to guess what might happen next.

Yet the economic fallout from COVID-19 has been unlike anything we’ve seen before. The uniquely targeted effect of the virus has led to unique economic conditions as well. Past recoveries don’t offer the same kind of models for the future. And models are, after all, only models.

To illustrate just how different today’s economic crisis is from the past, our Labor Market Information team built a new Comparing Recessions data tool for the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). The tool underscores just how the pandemic recession is different from recent recessions in a number of important ways, and how it has had an unprecedented impact on employment in certain industries.

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