Presentation by Robert Arnold, a Unit Chief in CBO’s Macroeconomic Analysis Division, at the University of Michigan’s 68th Annual Economic Outlook Conference.
This presentation discusses the baseline economic forecast that CBO used as the basis for its budget projections for 2020 to 2030, which were released on September 2, 2020.
The forecast is CBO's first complete set to incorporate the effects of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and the legislation enacted in response. That pandemic has caused widespread economic disruption. To mitigate the contagion, governments, businesses, and households in the United States and around the world have taken measures to limit in-person interactions. Collectively referred to as social distancing, those measures include reducing social activities and travel, curtailing the activity of schools and business, and working from home. In the first quarter of 2020, the pandemic and associated social distancing ended the longest economic expansion and triggered the deepest downturn in output and employment since World War II.
