As 80% of U.S. counties are under lockdown orders, almost one-third of the U.S. economy has been knocked offline, according to a study done for The Wall Street Journal.
This would trump the Great Depression's 26% annual drop from 1929-1933 and the Great Recession's 4% quarterly drop from 2007-2009, according to the report.
"This is a natural disaster," Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, told the Journal. "There's nothing in the Great Depression that is analogous to what we're experiencing now."
Additionally, 96 percent of the counties locked down represent national output, according to Moody's.
Zandi's estimates are based on the U.S. reopening the economy before summer, so things could become more bleak if the global coronavirus pandemic does not burn off in warmer weather as President Donald Trump had hoped early on.
The study also does not factor in consumer spending drops that will result from surging unemployment and wealth loss, per the report.
Among other findings in the study:
- 90% of the U.S. hotel industry is shut down.
- Just 10% of financial-services output is shut down.
- Past recession was demand-side, while this drop is supply-side first, which will eventually affect demand.
- GOP has fallen roughly $350 billion.
"It's like if Indiana disappeared for an entire year," Zandi told the Journal.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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