Linking BRS Data for Additional Insights on Reponses to the Coronavirus Pandemic

• Activity Number: 324 - Late-Breaking Session 2: Business Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Thursday, August 12, 2021 : 10:00 AM to 11:50 AM
• Sponsor: JSM Partner Societies
• Author(s): Michael Dalton*
• Companies: US Bureau of Labor Statistics

Abstract

This presentation will describe three unique research projects exploring how employers were affected. The first examines how low-wage workers and employers have been hit hardest by the pandemic and continue to lag behind in the recovery. The BRS shwos low wage employers are disproportionately more likely to not have telework available and less likely to pay employees told not to work and less likely to pay health insurance for employees told not to work. The second paper looks at how receipt of a loan from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) has affected employment and closures of businesses through June 2021. The BRS is used to validate the record linking process to the wage records. These are the first results to use wage record data and a credible identification strategy for estimating the effect of PPP. The final project is an experimental research project using natural language processing techniques to assess open-ended text box responses in the BRS. We identify word clusters of interest to capture concepts that are not directly asked about in the BRS.