Third, both the learning lags involved in noticing stronger demand and the decision lags involved in responding to stronger demand depend in part on the stories we tell ourselves – our narratives and beliefs. That’s because these help determine how readily we update our hypotheses, and change our minds.
Many who had struggled for years were finding jobs. Racial disparities in unemployment were narrowing. In contrast, one of the great cruelties of the COVID-19 recession is the toll it took on workers who were finally beginning to experience the benefits of a period of historically long economic growth. Those same groups, unfortunately, disproportionately shouldered the brunt of the pandemic’s burden.