The Great Lockdown: Worst Economic Downturn Since the Great Depression

WE HAVE A GLOBAL, WORLD WIDE INTERNATIONAL RECESSION

Many countries now face multiple crises—a health crisis, a financial crisis, and a collapse in commodity prices, which interact in complex ways.

The World Economic Outlook projects global growth in 2020 to fall to -3 percent. This is a downgrade of 6.3 percentage points from January 2020, a major revision over a very short period.

This makes the Great Lockdown the worst recession since the Great Depression, and far worse than the Global Financial Crisis.

For the first time since the Great Depression both advanced economies and emerging market and developing economies are in recession.

For this year, growth in advanced economies is projected at -6.1 percent. Emerging market and developing economies with normal growth levels well above advanced economies are also projected to have negative growth rates of -1.0 percent in 2020, and -2.2 percent if you exclude China.

Income is projected to shrink for over 170 countries. Both advanced economies and emerging market and developing economies are expected to partially recover in 2021.