By Stephanie Horan | Smartasset
In a survey of economists conducted by the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business at the beginning of March 2020, more than half of participants expected COVID-19 to cause a major recession. Since then, increasing numbers of economists and policy makers have predicted that coronavirus will lead to a recession, defined as a fall in GDP in two successive quarters. In fact, one of the most dire estimates came out on Friday, March 20, with Goldman Sachs predicting that the U.S. GDP will shrink by 24% in the second quarter of 2020. That decline would be two and half times larger than any previous quarterly decline, critically affecting everyday Americans’ ability to manage expenses and save for their futures.
Though a COVID-19 recession is likely to affect all Americans, despite the government’s coronavirus stimulus package, it may strain some communities more than others. In this study, we looked at workers, states and cities that are likely to be most affected by a forthcoming recession. For details on our data sources and how we put all the information together to create our final rankings, check out the Data and Methodology section below.
