Another 6.6 million Americans registered to claim for jobless benefits in the beginning of April – Consumer Sentiment drops in the United States

For the third consecutive week, a record number (6.6 millions) of Americans filed for first-time unemployment. In addition, the consumer sentiment index provided by the University of Michigan plunged by 18.1 in the beginning of April. These developments are worrying. Although there is hope that the situation will not get much worser and might start to improve in early May, recovery could be slow. A so-called V-shaped recovery (so high economic growth after some of the measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus are lifted) is still possible, but increasingly unlikely. As I mentioned earlier, serious economic forecasts are not possible at the moment. I hope that in early May, we might be in a position to attempt an assessment of the macroeconomic situation.