The employment-to-population ratio of Americans ages 25 through 54, the most straightforward measure of the health of the job market, has now clawed back about 80% of its pandemic losses.

Consumer spending on durable goods fell for the sixth month in a row in September, according to inflation-adjusted data released last week.

The brief-but-sharp 2020 recession and its aftermath are already shaping up a lot differently for college enrollment. Census Bureau data released last week, included in the above chart, shows a modest 0.7-percentage-point overall enrollment decline from the previous year as of October 2020 — albeit with an interesting divergence between men (down 1.5 points) and women (down 0.2).

A lot of things can be expected to go back to normal once the Covid-19 pandemic is truly over. Restaurants, cruise ships and resort towns will be packed again. Spending on home improvements will subside.

Much about the business may need to be reimagined and reinvented in the process, but demand for what restaurants offer, though, is surely not going away.