CBO says COVID-19 recovery for the U.S. economy will take about 10 years
CBO says COVID-19 recovery for the U.S. economy will take about 10 years
The Congressional Budget Office is out with some grim projections, saying the U.S. economy won’t recover from the coronavirus pandemic until 2029 — and the recovery won’t begin until next year.
The CBO projects the COVID-19 pandemic will cost the U.S. almost $8 trillion in lost economic output this decade, down 3% from pre-pandemic projections.
The agency says that consumer spending will decline amid high unemployment, and while many out-of-work Americans will get back to work starting this summer as states reopen, the CBO expects it will take a decade for employment to return to pre-pandemic levels.
The agency says until there’s a coronavirus vaccine, some amount of social distancing will likely be with us for the foreseeable future, and that will slow the recovery.
The projections incorporate the more than $2 trillion in financial assistance the federal government has doled out.
The CBO says a lot of uncertainty remains about the pandemic’s effect on the economy, as well as the effect of the financial rescue program. Its projections are likely to change, as those are better understood.
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