Shutdown's economic damage: $1 billion a week [View all]

[riversedge]

Source: Politico



The mounting toll is adding new risks to the Trump administration’s economic hopes for 2019.

By VICTORIA GUIDA 01/09/2019 06:33 PM EST


As federal workers face the prospect of missed paychecks during the partial government shutdown, their financial reality is rippling into the broader economy.

The roughly 800,000 government employees who are either furloughed or working without pay will be forced to start slashing their consumer spending when paychecks don’t appear this week. Private-sector contractors and other workers tied to the government are already seeing damage from lost business.

And a hit to the nation’s financial standing is on the horizon with a warning from Fitch Ratings on Wednesday about downgrading the government’s credit rating if the shutdown persists.

Estimates from President Donald Trump’s chief economist peg the cost to the overall U.S. economy at about $1.2 billion for each week the shutdown persists. While that’s just 0.05 percentage points off the GDP growth rate, it could be among the factors complicating the administration’s aspiration of reaching sustained 3 percent growth.
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Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/09/shutdowns-economic-damage-1-billion-a-week-1071609