IMF says global economic collapse caused by coronavirus will be even worse than feared
The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday painted a bleak portrait of the global economy, saying the coronavirus pandemic has caused more widespread damage than expected and will be followed by a sluggish recovery.
The global economy will shrink this year by 4.9%, worse than the 3% decline predicted in April, the IMF said.
No major economy is escaping the pandemic. The U.S. economy, the world’s largest, is expected to shrink this year by 8%. Countries that use the single European currency are headed for a decline of more than 10% while Japanese output will fall by 5.8%, the IMF said.
The American economy is reopening. In Alabama, gyms are back in business. In Georgia, restaurants are seating customers again. In Texas, the bars are packed. And in Vermont, the stay-at-home order has been lifted. People are still frightened. Americans are still dying. But the next, queasy phase of the coronavirus pandemic is upon us. And it seems likely that the financial nadir, the point at which the economy stops collapsing and begins growing again, has passed.
What will the recovery look like? At this fraught moment, no one knows enough about consumer sentiment and government ordinances and business failures and stimulus packages and the spread of the disease to make solid predictions about the future. The Trump administration and some bullish financial forecasters are arguing that we will end up with a strong, V-shaped rebound, with economic activity surging right back to where it was in no time. Others are betting on a longer, slower, U-shaped turnaround, with the pain extending for a year or three. Still others are sketching out a kind of flaccid check mark, its long tail sagging torpid into the future.
Excitement about reopening aside, that third and most miserable course is the one we appear to be on. The country will rebound, as things reopen. The bounce will seem remarkable, given how big the drop was: Retail sales rose 18 percent in May, and the economy added 2.5 million jobs. But absent dramatic policy action, a pandemic depression is possible: the Congressional Budget Office anticipates that the American economy will generate $8 trillion less in economic activity over the next decade than it projected just a few months ago, and that a full recovery might not take hold until the 2030s.
140,000 Businesses on YELP Still Closed
The majority of businesses that closed during the Covid-19 pandemic remained shut this month as the crisis continued to upend commerce, according to data from review site Yelp Inc.
Yelp also found a surging interest in supporting black-owned businesses amid racial-equality activism following the killing of George Floyd.
Roughly 140,000 Yelp-listed businesses that had closed since March 1 remained closed on June 15. A large minority of that set, 41%, has shut for good, according to Yelp.
The figures have improved by about 20% compared with April data, when 175,000 businesses were closed. But the large share of persistent closures, which were spread nationwide, showed the pandemic’s stubborn hindrance to life as normal even as all 50 states have taken steps to reopen.