Section 2: Impact of COVID-19 on the Economy | 2021 E-Insights Report | State of the Region | USF Muma College of Business

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Section 2 of the USF Muma College of Business 2021 E-Insights Report analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on the Tampa Bay MSA, noting that as of Dec. 7 there had been 14.9 million COVID-19 cases and more than 285,000 deaths in the United States and that unemployment rose to almost 15 percent in the month of April, 2020. Its indicators are COVID-19 incidence rates, unemployment change in 2020, small business revenue, consumer spending, urban-suburban rental demand and food insecurity rates. The data come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Feeding America, Zillow research, Womply and Affinity Solutions through tracktherecovery.org, and the charts compare Tampa Bay with other metro areas as percentage changes since January.

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2021 E-Insights Report

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Section 2: Impact of COVID-19 on the Economy

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted lives, pushed healthcare systems to (or in some
 cases beyond) capacity and caused a global economic slowdown. As of Dec. 7, there have been
 14.9 million COVID-19 cases and more than 285,000 deaths in the United States. Prior to
 the pandemic, the American economy was thriving and unemployment rates were at a 50-year
 low. Now, however, unemployment rates have risen to the highest levels since World
 War II, rising to almost 15 percent in the month of April, 2020. Although unemployment
 rates are falling. They are still above the rates seen in January and February 2020.
 The U.S. economy is primarily driven by consumer spending; people are spending less
 during the pandemic which, in turn, has an effect on business revenue -- and therefore
 the economy.

The labor market, too, will forever be different with companies adding more technology
 to help employees work remotely. Some companies will continue this practice post-pandemic
 thereby reducing demand for commercial real estate. It also gives the people a reason to move
 away from cities since they can work from home.

In this section, researchers analyze the impact and recovery of COVID-19 on the Tampa
 Bay MSA using various indicators. The indicators selected are 1) COVID-19 incidence
 rates, 2) unemployment rate change in 2020, 3) the impact on small business revenue,*
 4) the impact on consumer spending, 5) the impact on urban-suburban relative rental
 demand, 6) food insecurity rates and 7) the key insights gathered from the overall
 analysis.

The data sources for this analysis are from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Feeding
 America, Zillow research, Womply and Affinity Solutions (economic tracker, tracktherecovery.org).
 The data sources were provided at either the MSA level, county level or the ZIP code
 level. When the data was available at MSA level, researchers used the data directly.
 However, for Raleigh-Durham MSA, which consists of two MSAs (Raleigh MSA and Durham-Chapel
 Hill MSA) and the Tampa Bay region which consists of four MSAs (Tampa-St. Petersburg- Clearwater,
 Homosassa Springs, Lakeland-Winter Haven and North Port- Sarasota-Bradenton), researchers
 aggregated the data from MSA level to regional level by taking a weighted average
 using population as the weight. When the data was available at the county level, scholars
 aggregated the data based on the counties present in each MSA and added raw numbers
 (if available) and took weighted averages with population or per capita income depending
 on the variable being analyzed.

Researchers present the data in two charts, one which compares the Tampa Bay MSA with
 the overall MSAs in the analysis and another which compares the Tampa Bay MSA with
 other Florida MSAs. With one exception, each chart compares either the daily percentage
 change since January or the monthly percentage change since January. The exception
 is the food insecurity chart, which includes data from 2010. Researchers chose to
 calculate percentage changes instead of comparing the raw numbers because each MSA
 was impacted by COVID-19 at different points in time of the year -- and each MSA handled
 the pandemic differently. Further, given that researchers had less than a year’s worth
 of data at the time of writing the report, it made more sense to compare each MSA
 with how it performed compared to itself before the pandemic. All the charts for all
 MSAs start at 0. Researchers compared by which the MSA declined or improved in comparison
 to its value in January.

In addition to the above-described signals, the researchers also analyzed signals
 from real-time data sources, such as Google Trends, and the data on professional job openings from
 online job portals, such as LinkedIn and Indeed. The researchers use Google Trends to analyze
 the consumer spending behavior to derive the understanding on the impact of COVID-19
 on the commercial activity of a region. Google Trends provides rich insights on the
 impact of COVID-19 on not only the economy of the region but also on the family life
 of individuals within a region. Online job portals such as Indeed and professional
 networking websites such as LinkedIn provide data on professional job openings on
 daily basis. Scholars used this data to understand the impact of COVID-19 on the job
 openings of professional jobs in the MSAs of the study.

Finally, scholars present the key takeaways from the analysis for each indicator after
 the graphical charts.

*Note – Small Business Revenue data was available only at the city level of the MSA,
 and no data was available for Orlando.

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