The Congressional Budget Office on Thursday projected that the unemployment rate would remain above pre-pandemic levels through 2030.
It forecasts that the jobless rate will reach 4.4% by the end of 2030.
The unemployment rate in April, the month before stay-at-home orders were initiated, was 3.5%.
The report by the CBO, the nonpartisan agency responsible for preparing budget and economic analysis for Congress, comes as the Labor Department earlier on Thursday reported that the economy gained 4.8 million jobs in June and the unemployment rate fell to 11.1%.
The CBO provides periodic updates on economic conditions to inform lawmakers on how things such as labor and economic growth could change in the future. The coronavirus pandemic has altered their projections from earlier this year. They now show a nation struggling to recover from the economic hit it took because of the virus.
Regarding gross domestic product, the CBO expects it to grow at an annualized rate of 12.4% in the second half of 2020, but not hit pre-pandemic levels until the middle of 2022. It also projects slower growth over the next decade.
“The economic outlook for 2020 to 2030 has deteriorated significantly since the agency last published its full baseline economic projections in January,” the report states, adding that “the annual level of real GDP in those years is now projected to be 3.4% lower, on average, than it was projected to be in January.”
It also expects that the jobs market will bounce back slower when compared to its previous forecast. In January, it projected an annual unemployment rate average of 4.2% between 2020 and 2030. The jobless average is now 6.1%.
The CBO will release another report later this summer that will forecast issues such as the deficit, debt, revenue collections, and spending levels.
