U.S. Q2 GDP Drops 32.9% as 1.4 Million People File for Unemployment Last Week

Gross domestic product (GDP) for the United States decreased “at an annual rate” of 32.9 percent in the second quarter of 2020, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported today.

GDP and other key economic indicators are often presented “at an annual rate”, or annualized, using a formula designed to make comparisons easier. When viewed at a quarterly level, GDP for the second quarter of 2020 decreased 9.5%.

In 2019, GDP for the U.S. in actual dollars was $21,433,200,000,000, i.e., $21.4 Trillion. That means that, when annualized, GDP for the second quarter of 2020 decreased $2.15 Trillion. This drop was led by stark decreases in consumer spending and exports, but was slightly offset by a $1.5 Trillion increase in personal income led by economic impact payment from the federal government.

As the Q2 GDP number was released, so was news that 1,434,000 Americans filed for unemployment last week. Over 1 million people each week have declared unemployment since the beginning of COVID-19 related shutdowns in March.

As of July 18, the unemployment rate is 11.6% while 30,202,498 Americans continue to receive some sort of unemployment benefits.