The US economy faces risks from a potential resurgence of COVID-19 and from the failure so far of the US Congress to provide additional financial support for struggling individuals and businesses.
That judgement emerged from a survey released yesterday by the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) of 52 forecasters who were polled last month.
Among the forecasters, 55 percent said they regarded a second wave of COVID-19 cases as the most serious threat.
Twenty percent said they thought a lack of further government economic aid would pose the biggest risk.
The inability of Democrats and Republicans to forge a compromise has meant that unemployed Americans are no longer receiving a federal unemployment benefit. Support for small businesses has also expired. States and localities, many of which have suffered sharp declines in tax revenue, are struggling, too, without further federal assistance.
Similar to many other economists, the NABE’s forecasters have estimated that the US economy, as measured by GDP, grew at a 25 percent annual rate in the July-to-September quarter. That would be the largest quarterly gain on records dating to 1947.
However, it would follow an even bigger contraction in the April-to-June quarter, when COVID-19 paralyzed much of the US economy.
For the current quarter, the NABE panel forecast a 4.9 percent annual growth rate.
The recovery from the pandemic recession, in the view of the forecasters, would remain sluggish in coming months. A majority of them do not expect GDP to return to its pre-pandemic levels until sometime in 2022.
For all of this year, the panel expects GDP to decline 4.3 percent. That would be the US economy’s first full-year contraction since a 2.5 percent fall in 2009 at the end of the Great Recession.
For next year, the forecasters expect growth of 3.6 percent.
“NABE panelists have become more optimistic, on balance, but remain concerned about a potential second-wave of COVID-19,” said Eugenio Aleman, an economist at Wells Fargo Bank and the chair of the NABE survey panel.
On the danger that the US economy might suffer a double-dip recession, in which GDP would shrink again, 51 percent of the forecasters estimated the chances at 20 percent or less. Only 12 percent saw the likelihood at 50 percent or more.
More than half the panelists believe that 10 to 20 percent of the jobs that have been lost to the pandemic recession are permanently gone, with many hotels, restaurants, retailers and entertainment venues unable to reopen.
When an apartment comes up for rent in Germany’s big cities, hundreds of prospective tenants often queue down the street to view it, but the acute shortage of affordable housing is getting scant attention ahead of today’s snap general election. “Housing is one of the main problems for people, but nobody talks about it, nobody takes it seriously,” said Andreas Ibel, president of Build Europe, an association representing housing developers. Migration and the sluggish economy top the list of voters’ concerns, but analysts say housing policy fails to break through as returns on investment take time to register, making the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
NOT TO WORRY: Some people are concerned funds might continue moving out of the country, but the central bank said financial account outflows are not unusual in Taiwan Taiwan’s outbound investments hit a new high last year due to investments made by contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and other major manufacturers to boost global expansion, the central bank said on Thursday. The net increase in outbound investments last year reached a record US$21.05 billion, while the net increase in outbound investments by Taiwanese residents reached a record US$31.98 billion, central bank data showed. Chen Fei-wen (陳斐紋), deputy director of the central bank’s Department of Economic Research, said the increase was largely due to TSMC’s efforts to expand production in the US and Japan. Investments by Vanguard International
WARNING SHOT: The US president has threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on all imported vehicles, and similar or higher duties on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors US President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that a trade deal with China was “possible” — a key target in the US leader’s tariffs policy. The US in 2020 had already agreed to “a great trade deal with China” and a new deal was “possible,” Trump said. Trump said he expected Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to visit the US, without giving a timeline for his trip. Trump also said that he was talking to China about TikTok, as the US seeks to broker a sale of the popular app owned by Chinese firm ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動). Trump last week said that he had
RSS