America’s economic recovery is in an uneasy pause, with key indicators of hiring, shopping and investment stalling or in retreat in the wake of a resurgence in coronavirus cases across broad sections of the country, and with Congress and President Trump showing no signs of progress on another stimulus deal, the New York Times reported. Real-time measures of consumer spending, business sentiment, small-business reopening plans and even available jobs began flatlining last month, suggesting that the wave of virus infections that swept across parts of the U.S. in June and July came with economic consequences. Small-business data from the time management firm Homebase shows no improvement since the middle of the summer in employment or hours worked in crucial parts of the economy. Job postings from the online recruiting site Indeed slipped backward this week for the first time since May. Now, key policy supports that included a $600-per-week unemployment insurance expansion have begun to lapse. Congress appears unlikely to pick up negotiations on a new relief package until September, and analysts are increasingly accounting for the possibility that lawmakers will fail to strike a deal before the November election. By that point, with the changing weather pushing many people back inside, public health officials fear a new wave of coronavirus infections. Those twin risks — the path of the coronavirus and waning policy support — loom over the country’s fledgling recovery when the economy has yet to recover about 60 percent of the jobs lost since the start of the pandemic. More than half of those who are still out of work say they never expect to go back to their old jobs, according to polling from the online research firm SurveyMonkey.
