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Southwest Economy, Second Quarter 2021

Second Quarter 2021

Federal COVID-19 Relief Aided Consumer Debt, Though Immigrant Texans Derived Less Benefit

The prevalence of various federal-level assistance programs helped U.S. and Texas residents shore up their household finances during the COVID-19 recession. Among mostly immigrant groups, this tendency was less pronounced, likely due to legal and socioeconomic barriers.

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Texas Winter Deep Freeze Broke Refining, Petrochemical Supply Chains

It may take the Texas petrochemical industry until year-end 2021 to fully recover from the record cold that triggered power outages and supply disruptions in mid-February.

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Banks Face New Challenges as Texas Rebounds from COVID-19 Shock

The banking industry faced significant challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, with profitability declining to levels not seen since the 2008–09 financial crisis.

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Go Figure: Women Took Brunt of Pandemic Job Loss as Priorities Shifted to Home

Working women fared worse than men in the pandemic—a reversal from the Great Recession.

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President’s Perspective

President Kaplan shares recent thoughts on the outlook for Federal Reserve asset purchases, the labor market and inflation expectations.

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Texas Restaurants Find Change on Postpandemic Menu

Emily Williams Knight, president and CEO of the Texas Restaurant Association, discusses how the dining industry survived COVID-19 and the changes that have occurred.

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Spotlight: Oil Patch Productivity Rises; Jobs Vanish

After major oil price busts in 2014 and 2020, the same engineering prowess that helped the oil and gas industry thrive has been driven to find efficiencies to lower operating costs.

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Authors

Wenhua Di

Chloe Smith

Jesse Thompson

Amy Chapel

Kory Killgo

Kelly Klemme

Garrett Golding

Sean Howard

Olu Eseyin

Yichen Su

Camila L. Holm

Southwest Economy is published quarterly by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas or the Federal Reserve System.

Articles may be reprinted on the condition that the source is credited to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Visit dallasfed.org/research/swe to read the full publication. The podcast is available at dallasfed.org/research/swe/podcast.