On the March Jobs Report

A massive beat -- 916,000 net payrolls versus an already strong consensus for 660,000. It's all the more impressive in light of upward revisions of 156,000 over the prior two months. We told you this was coming, as the Social Distancing Index makes new lows, hitting winter 2020 pre-pandemic levels, and approaching the even lower spring levels. There's plenty of scope for more progress as the economy continues to reopen. 11.4 million still can't work due to pandemic-related business closures, and 3.7 million are outside the labor force due to Covid-19. The latest stimulus checks arrived after the BLS survey week, and to some extent they may have the perverse effect of temporarily lowering payroll growth as some service workers quit for a time to consume them in the form of leisure.