U.S. Economy Faces a Zombie Recovery, Even With Vaccine

Hope is on the horizon in the form of a vaccine. But an economy that seemed over the summer to be roaring back to life is facing a dark winter. In November, the U.S. created just 245,000 jobs, a pace at which it would take three and a half years to get employment back to February’s levels. Now, as cases of Covid-19 and deaths from the disease surge to record highs, states are imposing new restrictions.

The U.S. economy is likely to end the year almost 3% smaller than at the start. That’s not bad considering where things stood in the second quarter, when output collapsed at an annualized rate of more than 30%. But for Kriess and many other business owners who went into 2020 thinking they’d be riding an expansion, it feels worse. At the beginning of 2020, the U.S. economy was expected to grow by at least 2%. That means it’s closing the year roughly 5% smaller than it would have been.

As with the virus, the impact of the Covid-19 recession has been unequal. Although millions of people in the leisure and travel industries remain out of work, other Americans will emerge unaffected economically, and perhaps better off.

That pattern holds true in Butler County, which straddles the suburbs and exurbs of Pittsburgh, including Evans City. In October, the county had an unemployment rate of 5.9% compared with 6.9% nationally. But scratch the surface, and you discover all the little ways the local economy is hurting.

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