The Leisure and Hospitality Industry

Short-Term Growth, Long-Term Challenges

WASHINGTON—Ranking Member Mike Lee (R-UT) has released a Joint Economic Committee issue brief spotlighting how government policies stalled the recovery of the U.S. leisure and hospitality industry.

Nearly three quarters of the workers who still haven’t returned to work are concentrated in the U.S. leisure and hospitality industry. The JEC’s issue brief examines the outlook for these 1.53 million missing workers and documents how government interventions delayed the recovery of this critical economic sector.

While the U.S. leisure and hospitality industry has seen recent improvements as shutdowns, mandates, and work-discouraging incentives have expired or ended, many businesses are still dealing with the wide-ranging consequences of government-imposed shutdowns and capacity limitations.

Ensuring long-term progress on wages and employment for leisure and hospitality workers will require ending government intervention in this vital American industry.

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The Joint Economic Committee is Congress’s bicameral economic research center and home of the Social Capital Project, led by Ranking Member Mike Lee.

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