A Texas economist’s view of how D-FW, the state and U.S. will look in 2026
The COVID-19 pandemic caused unemployment to rise to levels not seen since the Great Depression.
The ensuing recession was unique because it wasn’t self-inflicted, said Ray Perryman, CEO of the Perryman Group.
“Almost every downturn in the last 50 years in the U.S. was because we did something stupid. Until COVID,” he said during the Dallas Regional Chamber’s annual Year Ahead event on Thursday.
It was also distinctive because the COVID health crisis had to be fixed first in order to correct the economic fallout, Perryman said.
Texas lost 338,600 jobs in 2009 during The Great Recession, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. During the pandemic, the state lost 1.4 million jobs from February to April 2020.
Now the economy is coming back, with Dallas-Plano-Irving recovering better than the state or nation, according to research from the Perryman Group.
The Dallas-Plano-Irving economy has surpassed pre-pandemic employment…
