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Economists Anticipate Economic Recovery by Third Quarter
June 12, 2020
The majority of economists in the Wall Street Journal’s most recent economic survey thought that the economic recovery in the U.S. will start soon, if it has not already. More than two-thirds of the survey’s business and academic economists, 68.4%, said the economic recovery would begin in the third quarter. A further 22.8% said that it already started in the current second quarter.
The respondents also feel more optimistic about GDP, which they see contracting 5.9% this year. This would be a large contraction, but not as large as the 6.6% contraction they estimated in last month’s survey. Likewise, they expect unemployment at the end of the year to be 9.6%, lower than the 11.4% predicted in the previous survey.
Despite more optimistic feelings about GDP and the labor market, the majority, 69%, of the economists predict a “swoosh” shaped recovery, called so because it is shaped like the Nike logo, with a large drop followed by a longer, more gradual rebound.
