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The COVID Project
  1. The Story
  2. The Six Quarters

The Story

The six quarters

The Employee Retention Credit asks the same question of each calendar quarter from the second quarter of 2020 through the third quarter of 2021: were orders from an appropriate governmental authority limiting commerce, travel or group meetings in force, and did they suspend more than a nominal part of what your business did. Each quarter below has its own page: the orders in force, the map on the first and last day, the analysis, and the partial-suspension test applied to that quarter.

Build your report Scrub the orders clock The partial-suspension test
2020Q2 · quarter 1 of 6Second quarter of 2020Apr. 1, 2020 to June 30, 2020 (orders from Mar. 13, 2020)4,976 orders in forceBusiness closure 1,472Gathering cap 1,309Other 1,256Workplace rules 1,252From the middle of March through June 2020 every State, the District of Columbia and the federal government had orders in force that closed business premises, sent customers and workers home, shut every school, stopped elective medical and dental care, closed the borders and suspended the courts.Open the quarter2020Q3 · quarter 2 of 6Third quarter of 2020July 1, 2020 to Sept. 30, 20203,675 orders in forceWorkplace rules 1,191Other 1,025Face-covering requirement 942Capacity limit 753The summer of 2020 was not a return to normal.Open the quarter2020Q4 · quarter 3 of 6Fourth quarter of 2020Oct. 1, 2020 to Dec. 31, 20203,550 orders in forceWorkplace rules 1,188Face-covering requirement 1,045Other 881Gathering cap 850The winter of 2020 brought the second shutdown.Open the quarter2021Q1 · quarter 4 of 6First quarter of 2021Jan. 1, 2021 to Mar. 31, 20213,342 orders in forceWorkplace rules 1,095Face-covering requirement 1,017Other 837Capacity limit 764The first quarter of 2021 opened under every winter order and ended with a third of the country still capped.Open the quarter2021Q2 · quarter 5 of 6Second quarter of 2021Apr. 1, 2021 to June 30, 20213,199 orders in forceWorkplace rules 1,070Face-covering requirement 1,040Other 893Capacity limit 586The second quarter of 2021 was the quarter the general orders ended, and they ended late, on dates the orders themselves fixed.Open the quarter2021Q3 · quarter 6 of 6Third quarter of 2021July 1, 2021 to Sept. 30, 20212,704 orders in forceFace-covering requirement 900Workplace rules 882Other 798Health care orders 571The third quarter of 2021 is the quarter the IRS's letters most often describe as one without orders.Open the quarter

Counts are the orders in the Library that carry each quarter, not a count of every order that existed. Wages paid after March 12, 2020 are claimed in the second quarter of 2020, so the orders of March 13 to 31, 2020 belong to that quarter's record.

Limitation types by quarter

What kind of orders were in force, quarter by quarter

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The counts as a table
Limitation type2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
Emergency declaration528430409428455411
Stay-at-home54596121106529
Business closure1,47253750141625860
Telework mandate51224128124819371
Capacity limit745753846764586153
Gathering cap1,309741850738520184
Face-covering requirement6419421,0451,0171,040900
Travel and quarantine626378383396314203
Schools and child care453306326292303391
Health care orders817560552543552571
Curfew and hours981332622148713
Alcohol and bars37636241634922057
Events and venues418335405381304107
Courts and public offices883594547503513471
Workplace rules1,2521,1911,1881,0951,070882
Vaccination or testing693559153491
Quarantine and isolation357342395363366287
Supply chain208155143140140106
Standing duty756641
Operating condition2216161495
Other1,2561,025881837893798
Orders in force4,9763,6753,5503,3423,1992,704

An order that carries two limitation types is counted once under each; the last row counts orders. A bar's length is the quarter's total of type tags relative to the largest quarter.

How to read a quarter

The same five steps on every quarter page

Every quarter page applies the same method: the order (issuer, instrument, date, exhibit); the function of the business it reached; the change it compelled, in the order's own words; the days of the quarter it was in force; and the statute's answer. A partial suspension is a temporary delay, interruption or termination of a portion of an employer's operations, and "due to" asks only whether the suspension would have occurred but for the orders.

Nothing in the statute asks whether the business was essential, stayed open, could telework, or served customers who were themselves under orders. Read the test and the method once, then open the quarter you claimed.

Your quarter, your State, your industry

The report builder takes your State, your metropolitan area, your industry and the quarters you claimed and returns the orders in force, cited, with exhibit links, as a printable record.

Build your report