9,759
Sidelined in the pandemic economy = officially unemployed, absent from work without pay and lost pay due to the pandemic, or not in the labor force and not looking for work due to the pandemic.
Source: CBPP analysis of basic monthly CPS public use microdata files and COVID-19 supplemental data files.
Moreover, as we’ve already discussed, official unemployment statistics badly understate the number of workers deprived of pay amid the pandemic. They only count people who actively looked for work in the last four weeks or reported being on temporary layoff. This omits some 4.7 million workers in January who were not in the labor force and did not look for work in the last four weeks “because of the coronavirus pandemic,” according to supplemental COVID-related questions from the Labor Department.