Aaron Benanav is a Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences Division at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on the global history of unemployment. Benanav's first book, Automation and the Future of Work, is forthcoming from Verso in late 2020. He is currently working on a second project on postwar efforts to achieve full employment worldwide. He can be found on the web at aaronbenanav.com and on twitter at @abenanav.

April 3, 2020

Analysis

Crisis and Recovery

The underlying problems in the US economy

Today’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report hardly registers the cataclysm in the US job market. The sharp 0.9 percent uptick in unemployment—itself newsworthy—only grasps the very beginnings of the shutdown of the American economy.