Independent observers are now calculating the economic losses of the United States in the battle against the coronavirus. According to the report of the British investment company Buy Shares, the US will face a record economic plunge in the last 70 years.
After several years of a consistently high growth rate, the American economy is now headed toward a major collapse due to the largest-ever decline in GDP. The crisis triggered off by the coronavirus pandemic brought the top global economy to the worst condition in 70 years. Buy Shares’ report stated that real GDP plunged by 32.9% in the second quarter. It was the steepest quarterly decline since 1947 when the government began tracking the figure. Comparing it to other major falls in gross domestic product, the current contraction can be called a historically poor showing as it is worse than all the previous results put together. In the first quarter of 1958 and in the second quarter of 1980, the economy shrank by 10% and 8%, respectively. Meanwhile, during the 2008 recession, GDP tumbled by 8.4% in the fourth quarter. The decline in GDP is a clear indicator of how the coronavirus pandemic has affected the country's economy. Thus, American consumers were forced to cut costs and businesses had to freeze investments, while the global trading activity slowed down.
On the bright side, the outcome would have been catastrophic if the American government had not pumped up trillions of dollars into the economy. However, experts believe that even these measures have not been enough to improve the US economic activity. Most likely, the recovery of the American economy from the coronavirus will be long and painful.
