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8.A. - Page 32 of 42 <br />spending declined significantly in March of 2020, as consumer spending reoriented away from many forms <br />of entertainment to goods consumption. This decline of over 30 percent, persisted for just a couple of <br />weeks, after which spending gradually rose until the fall. This is all consistent with the changes in GDP <br />described above. In early January, consumer spending was still nearly 3 percent below its early 2020 <br />levels. As with GDP, consumer spending would have increased over the course of 2020 were it not from <br />the pandemic. <br />Consumer Price Index <br />-CPI (YOY) Core CPI (YoY) <br />4% <br />3% <br />2% <br />1% <br />0% <br />Sep '17 Mar'18 Sep '18 Mar'19 Sep '19 Mar'20 Sep '20 <br />PFM Asset Management LLC <br />The economic impact of COVID-19 has resulted in business closures and job losses for 10.7 million <br />Americans and an unemployment rate of 6.7 percent as of December 2020. The pain from the pandemic <br />has hardly been evenly distributed. People -facing sectors, such as restaurants and hotels, transportation, <br />and entertainment and recreation, remain well below their early 2020 levels. Entertainment and <br />recreation in particular are at levels barely half of what they were just a year earlier. Other sectors, or <br />course, are doing quite well. As people are spending less on services, they are spending more on goods. <br />Both the retail and grocery sectors of the economy are doing quite well. <br />Employment is where the rubber hits the road for workers in the United States. As the demand for <br />workers grows, so do the fortunes of the nation's workers. As consumer spending declined rapidly during <br />the pandemic, so too did employment. Job losses are part of the driving force behind the declines in <br />consumer spending just discussed. <br />3 <br />563 <br />