WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th April, 2020) The United States will experience an unprecedented economic decline in the second quarter due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell said on Wednesday.
"As many factories have temporarily closed, overall economic activity will likely drop at an unprecedented rate in the second quarter," Powell told a virtual news conference after the Federal Reserve announced it was maintaining US interest rates at between zero and 0.25 percent to support the economy through its recovery from the pandemic.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Commerce Department said the US economy shrank 4.8 percent in the first three months of 2020 - the sharpest economic decline since the Great Recession of 2008.
Powell said that on top of factory closures in the second quarter, business investment was down as well, while unemployment was expected to hit double-digits in jobs data for April scheduled to be reported next week.
"It's going to be worse than any data and it's going to be a direct consequence of the disease and the measures that were taken to protect ourselves from it," Powell said, referring to social distancing and shutdown of most non-essential businesses across the country. "It's an extraordinary shock, unlike anything certainly that's happened in my lifetime."
The United States is the country worst hit by the COVID-19, with more than a million Americans infected and at least 60,000 dead.
