The US economy may “easily” shrink 20 to 30 percent this quarter because of the corona virus, US Central Bank director Jerome Powell said in an interview on US television on Sunday evening CBS.
Due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus in the United States, many companies have closed their doors. Many companies are in danger of bankruptcy and over 36 million Americans have lost their jobs since the outbreak began.
Powell expects the economic contraction to continue until the end of 2021. Unemployment in the US could also rise to 25 percent. The last time that happened was during the economic crisis in the 1930s. Powell therefore calls for more economic aid.
In the third quarter of 2020, Powell does think that the economy will grow again, but a full return of the economy to the situation before the corona crisis does not take place until he has a vaccine for the virus.
Yet the president of the Federal Reserve says he is confident that the US economy will eventually recover. The US financial system is working well, according to Powell, and the coronavirus is an “outside event” from which the economy can recover well, he says.
The US is the most affected country worldwide by the corona virus. To date, there have been 89,000 deaths from the virus.
Follow the latest developments around the virus in our live blog.
The coronavirus in short
–
–
–
– .
