Gonna be BIG holes in a LOT of budgets….
Service, Programs and Jobs are bound to be cut for next year….
Mayors across the country are lining up behind company heads, Governors and others for money from the Federal Government that prints the stuff….
Cities could lose $1.5 trillion in economic activity in 2020 — and that’s if the coronavirus pandemic is brought under control later this year, according to a new report from the US Conference of Mayors.
The loss amounts to a drop of 8.8% in economic output.
The average unemployment rate for 2020 is expected to be above 10% in 161 metro areas, or 42% of the total, according to the report.
“Our budgets have really been hurt, some decimated, by this pandemic,” said Louisville, Kentucky, Mayor Greg Fischer, the conference’s president. “Rising costs to deal with the pandemic and falling tax revenue have been a double whammy on cities.”
Over the second half of this year, metro economies should continue to recover some of the losses in jobs and wages from the spring — if the outbreak doesn’t continue to surge.
But the recovery will be slow, according to the report. By the first quarter of next year, metro-level employment will remain 5.2% below that of a year earlier, a loss of 7 million jobs….
Are you better off than you were four years ago?