WSJ: US economy shows signs of resuscitation

This opinion is shared in the White House, writes "Voice of America".

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There are more and more trucks. Booking airline tickets and hotels has grown slightly. The number of mortgage applications is growing. More and more people are applying for a new business, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The main American business newspaper sees this as the first signs of the gradual return of the US economy to life.

According to current forecasts, this year the economy will shrink by 6-7 percent, and the unemployment rate for some time will be expressed in double digits. But for the first time since the pandemic led to the large-scale closure of the business in March, the situation in some sectors of the economy at least does not worsen, or perhaps even improves.

“If this is the only wave of coronavirus, then it looks like we have reached the bottom and the process of normalization has begun,” says Beth Ann Bovino, chief US economist for the United States at S&P Global Ratings.

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Spending on hotels, restaurants, air travel, and other sectors of the economy affected by social distance remains low, but seems to be increasing gradually, writes the Wall Street Journal.

On April 14 of this year, 87534 people passed through the security checkpoints of the Transport Safety Administration, which is 96 percent less than on the same day last year. But on May 24, this figure almost tripled, amounting to 267451, although it is still 87 percent less than a year earlier.

“We hit the bottom when it comes to peak damage,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist for the United States at Oxford Economics. According to him, high-frequency indicators indicate "an increasing rebound in terms of the volume of people’s expenses."

“You can see this turn in data that is encouraging,” he continues, “but care must be taken, given that we are recovering from extremely depressive levels.”

The trend can be illustrated by the freight industry, the Wall Street Journal points out. Although, by historical standards, indicators remain low, they suggest that carriers have come out of a difficult situation.

Truckstop.com, which measures demand in the wholesale freight market, said its weekly index has been growing for four consecutive weeks, and the volume of freight available for transportation has increased by 27 percent for the week ended May 18.

This view is shared by the Trump administration, the Wall Street Journal. White House economic adviser Kevin Hasset said May 24 that there are early signs of a recovery in the US economy, noting that the May unemployment rate could be above 20 percent.

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"I think we have come very close to the inflection point in terms of business activity, and perhaps a month away from it in terms of employment," he told CNN.

As for economic activity in general, “there are“ certain positive signals in household spending, the real estate market and the stock market, ”says Konstantin Janellis, economist at the University of Chicago.

“But I do not think that we can predict that all this will continue and lead to a V-shaped recovery, or it will be a steady, prolonged depression. In reality, this will depend on the situation in healthcare, ”the expert adds.

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