Quick Glance at the State of the Economy

So what is up with this economy?! After a hardship during the past year for a lot of individuals, is the economy finally getting back to normal?

I can say we are doing much better in the economy since last year. But first and foremost let’s address the elephant in the room that caused all this because it just seems like everywhere we go or what has happened it links back to COVID-19. Since the pandemic, through major research and testing, healthcare professionals have came up with multiple vaccines that has proven to reduce hospitalizations, deaths, and overall cases of COVID-19. Now to fast forward, many countries including the U.S are lifting its restrictions. From the looks of it, we are definitely moving at a faster pace than other countries in getting everything slowly but surely back to normal.

Now let’s dive into how the pandemic really sent us and had us all the way messed up when these employers laid multiple individuals off, leaving more than 22.3 million Americans unemployed in March-April of 2020. I can say in 2021, the comeback is real. A lot of companies are desperate for workers to come back. Not only did the total employment rise amongst sectors and industries, wages also took a turn for the best, increasing from 0.33% for the month and 3.6% year over year. Now, we previously talked about the direct impact of COVID 19 on the economy so now we finally get to the conversation of the aftermath. Here, we can try to look to an optimistic future and possible normalization of the economy. Here’s a quick glance at how our economy is looking:

• There were many jobs added to the economy in May, improving the unemployment rate we saw during 2020. The current unemployment rate as of June was 5.9% (this compared to an almost 15% unemployment rate in April 2020!)

• In terms of Gross Domestic Product, we saw a huge jump from around -32% in quarter 2 of 2020 to around 6.5% this past quarter of 2021. That’s a big difference. The overall economy is measured by the GDP rate. So this is a great indication of how far we have come.

• The stock market has been steadily growing since last year with the Dow reaching a record high back in May of this year.

• Interest rates and inflation rates remain low as there is an effort to encourage more growth in the economy.

Overall, the U.S. is in a booming stage trying to recover from the effects of the pandemic. We can only wait and see how it turns out. And that’s it for this week. Happy 4th of July and be sure to check back next week! Like, subscribe, comment :)

—FW