An economy badly battered by the coronavirus shrank at a record 32.9% annual pace in the second quarter, underscoring just how big a hole the U.S. finds itself in as it labors to recover from the deepest recession in American history, MarketWatch reported. The tidal wave of damage from the first global pandemic in a century was almost as bad as Wall Street expected. Analysts had forecast a 35% decline in gross domestic product at an annual pace, the official scorecard of the U.S. economy. The recent surge in coronavirus cases in about half of U.S. states has also dealt a blow to a fragile economic recovery. Previously GDP had never shrunk by more than 10% on an annualized basis in any quarter since the government began keeping track shortly after World War II. Consumer spending contracted by a record 34.6% annualized clip in the spring. The decline was especially sharp in services — travel, tourism, medical care, eating out and the like. Businesses that rely on large groups of customers and heavy store traffic bore the brunt of government lockdowns after the pandemic erupted. Spending on services nosedived at a 43.5% annual pace. Households also spent far less on goods, though the decline wasn’t quite as steep.
