Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is predicting a major economic recovery later this year if the nation is able to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
“I expect we’ll have a big rebound later in the year,” Mnuchin said on Fox News Sunday. “So this isn’t like the financial crisis, as I’ve said. This will have an end to it as we confront the virus.”
Mnuchin said the pandemic must be contained through public health measures to protect the economy. If the country can succeed in that, he said, commerce will pick up briskly.
“We’re clearly going to have a slowdown …” he said in an appearance on ABC. “And later in the year, obviously the economic activity will pick up as we confront this virus.”
He and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are working toward legislation to succeed the package meant to aid idled workers approved by the House in the early morning hours of Saturday. The next bill will be aimed at protecting industries directly affected by the pandemic, such as airlines, hotels, and cruise lines. Many of those businesses, he said, are otherwise healthy but face a major liquidity crisis because of the dramatic decrease in travel and meetings.
“Our focus is especially small and medium-sized businesses that are really hit hard in specific industries,” he said on ABC.
Financial markets have been thrown into turmoil by the pandemic, and stock markets have entered bear territory for the first time since the financial crisis, meaning that they have lost 20% of their value.
The change in the economy has been so rapid that it has still not filtered through to broader metrics, such as unemployment and gross domestic product. Still, forecasters expect a contraction in the second quarter and a rise in joblessness.
