All of us hope that as soon as many as people as possible are vaccinated, the economy improves for everyone. In the last year, those who have jobs which involves meeting groups of people – tourism, hospitality, sporting events, conventions, hotels, and the list goes on have a very slow recovery. Those who can work from home or have jobs the government calls essential had a good recovery, because there has been less ability to spend on leisure and away from home, there likely was savings.

In an article by Ben Casselman of the New York Times News Service, the US job market in March was very good. 916,000 jobs or nearly twice as many as in February and the most since August were reported by the Labour Department. The unemployment rate fell to 6%.

The good news were people were receiving their $1,400 cheques and some were saving, some were paying bills and some were paying rent and meeting payments on old bills.

Daniel Zhao, senior economist for the career site Glassdoor, said the March numbers were not the biggest but it looks like a finish line can be seen.

President Biden noted there is still a big hole, the US still has 8.4 million less jobs than in February 2020. There is a report in the Wall Street Journal saying of those who went to payday lenders or subprime auto loans over 10% are over 60 days behind. (If someone gets behind for those companies, they will lose their vehicle because it is almost impossible to get ahead given the interest rates charged).

Many economists expect this time the jobs numbers will continue to get better because the vaccines mean less opportunity for governments to shut down the economy for public health safety.

The economy is coming back but it is a K shaped, not a V shaped.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, many companies depend on a wide number of people buying their goods, so when the economy is divided sales are still made, but sometimes they are less than what they could be. When you buy your investments understand how they are diversified and sales can continue no matter how the economy is performing.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.