Does economic recovery hinge on controlling Covid-19?

For a while, that appeared to be the case. But now the recovery is happening faster in places like Texas, Florida, Arizona and Georgia –– states that did a poor job of containing the virus this summer https://trib.al/ZUGloSG 

As we await a vaccine, we should expect better virus control to improve economic fortunes.

But we should also expect states that rely on logistics, manufacturing and construction to outperform service economies, no matter what their health performance is https://trib.al/ZUGloSG 

The best way to see this is to compare the unemployment rates of states that have done some of the best and worst jobs of containing the spread of the virus over the past couple of months https://trib.al/ZUGloSG 

States in the Northeast have consistently done the best job of containing the virus. Yet of the 10 states with unemployment north of 10% in August, half are in the Northeast —

Massachusetts
New Jersey
New York
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
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States in the Sun Belt did a poorer job of containing the virus.

Despite experiencing a surge in cases in June and July, the August unemployment rate was only 5.9% in Arizona, 7.4% in Florida, 5.6% in Georgia, and 6.8% in Texas https://trib.al/ZUGloSG 

How could this be? When looking at four of the other states with unemployment rates over 10% in August, there’s a mixed record on virus containment —

California
Hawaii
Illinois
Nevada https://trib.al/ZUGloSG 

What do they have in common? Tourist destinations reliant on air travel:

The theme parks of California
The beaches of Hawaii
The casinos of Las Vegas
The major city of Chicago
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The recovery patterns we’ve seen nationally are playing out between different states and communities.

The economies of Arizona and Texas, for example, have gotten a boost from housing construction, which has been among the first industries to recover https://trib.al/ZUGloSG 

The pandemic boom in e-commerce has been good news not only for companies such as Amazon and Shopify, but also for workers and communities.

Driving jobs and loading and stocking jobs have actually shown year-over-year growth in help-wanted ads https://trib.al/ZUGloSG 

Meanwhile, factory activity has improved lately as companies have sold down their inventories, creating shortages.

Supply chains still have problems, but this trend is lifting the fortunes of communities tied to the production of goods https://trib.al/ZUGloSG 

On the other hand, air travel in the U.S. is still only at 30% of normal levels.

Business travel and major conferences remain dormant. No city or state will completely get back to normal until there's a vaccine https://trib.al/ZUGloSG 

While economies in the Northeast and California may remain in a depression well into 2021, other parts of the country are transitioning into more of a modest recession.

Geography has become just one more way in which we're experiencing a K-shaped recovery https://trib.al/ZUGloSG