The impacts of COVID-19 have been far reaching, with disruption to some degree affecting every sector within the U.S. economy. Over 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment since the coronavirus pandemic began to shutter businesses across the country in mid-March. The number of claims imply a jobless rate of around 22%, the highest since the Great Depression in the 1930s. That’s also far above the peak of 10% reached during the 2009 financial crisis and most recent recession

U.S. gross domestic product turned negative for the first time since 2014 in the first three months of the year as the pandemic broadened and began to spread across the country in March. Output came to a near standstill and drove a deep contraction in consumer spending. The U.S. economy shrank a reported 4.8% vs. the revised estimate of -4.0%, and the +2.1% forecasted in 4Q 2019.

The Federal Reserve took the emergency steps of cutting U.S. interest rates by half a percentage point in early March, an attempt that they hope would limit the economic and financial fallout from COVID-19. In April, the Fed made a pledge to hold rates between 0.25 and zero and keep them there until full employment returns and inflation gets back to around the Fed’s long-stated 2% goal.