Job Losses Are Society’s Choice of Being Cruel to Be Kind

After yesterday’s jobless claims data set a fresh record, breaking that of the previous release, today’s employment data is also set to notch a milestone: that for least important payroll data of all time. The figures are going to be woefully stale, and regardless of the result will tell us essentially nothing about how the U.S. economy looks today.

You could argue that even the claims number is misleading. Sure, no one disputes that most businesses have shut up shop for the time being, and non-salaried workers aren’t receiving labor income. But in a sense, this reflects society’s decision of ...