Availability/Recency Biases and Recessions
While I maintain that the current downturn will end up being the worst since the Depression, it is worth reminding yourself what your personal recession data set is. Because there are immense availability/recency biases in play here, and they don't get driven home very well.
The following table shows ages, recession dates, and peak unemployment. In short, the average current employee has no working memory of a severe recession. Someone aged 45 today was 19 during the 1982 recession, so likely not even in the workforce. And they were 10 in 1973.
