Gross Domestic Product Declines -32.9% on Annualized Basis in Second Quarter of 2020

The Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) is reporting that Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is the widest measure of goods and services produced in the U.S., fell -9.5% in the second quarter of 2020. The result of the COVID-19 pandemic causing businesses across the U.S. to close and citizens, unless working at ‘essential’ jobs, to stay at home, in the hopes of slowing the virus’ spread. However, when combined with the Annual Update Real GDP the decrease is at an annual rate of -32.9% in the second quarter of 2020. A decline that can only be compared in speed and gravity to the Great Depression and the demobilization after World War II, both of which occurred before the advent of modern economic statistics. The decline in the first quarter of 2020 GDP was only -5%.