Data from all corners of the US economy published on Wednesday revealed the scale of the collapse in consumer demand, industrial activity and confidence, suggesting the hit from coronavirus lockdowns has been deeper even than feared.
Two measures in particular were historically bad: US industrial production showed the biggest monthly decline since the end of the second world war, while retail sales dropped by the most since the data started being collected in 1992.
“The message is that it will be a brutal spring quarter for the economy,” said Joshua Shapiro, an economist at the consulting firm MFR. “While there will be a bounce in growth rates as the economy is gradually reopened, returning to the levels of activity that prevailed pre-crisis is going to take a long time, and indeed probably will be measured in years for the most affected sectors.”