US Economy Won’t Rebound Quickly, Mnuchin: No Second Lockdown

As more and more states lift restrictions and life slowly returns to normal, the one thing that won’t quickly return is the US economy, according to John Layfield, the Layfield Report CEO.

Layfield says that it’s still unclear what effects the coronavirus will have on our country in the coming months, and that uncertainty means we won’t have the V-shaped recovery that everyone hopes for.

During an interview on the Fox News Rundown podcast, Layfield said, “To me, a V-shaped recovery means we go back to normal. We're going to have a new normal. We're going to have a recovery. That's the good part. But, I think the bad part is we're not going back to a normal type [of] economy anytime in the near future.”

He says the only way for the economy to rebound that quickly would be for everything to go immediately back to the way they were before the pandemic, which he points out is impossible for much of our economy.

“So, to me, I think… it's good that the economy is opening back up. But, I think the expectation… is a tad bit unrealistic that we're not going to open up and see the normal that we had back in December, January, when we had a pretty good economy.”

Layfield pointed out that during a recent trip to Texas, he saw very little social distancing and people were not wearing face masks.

“I know in restaurants that I would go to down in Texas, where you have — were much further along than the Northeast, people are still not wanting to sit near other people. People are still wanting to social distance.” he added.

“So, I think we're gonna have certain… parts of the economy that are going to bounce back fairly quickly. Certain parts of [the] economy are going to lag,” Layfield said.

While the country nervously watches hospitalization rates in the states that have been reopened the longest, don’t expect a spike in cases to bring a second shutdown.

That’s according to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who said despite a potential second wave of coronavirus cases, shutting down the economy a second time isn’t a viable option.

“We can’t shut down the economy again. I think we’ve learned that if you shut down the economy, you’re going to create more damage,” Mnuchin said during an interview on CNBC.

He said that while the initial lockdown was helpful, the cost of another lockdown is just too great for the country.

“And not just economic damage, but there are other areas and we’ve talked about this: medical problems and everything else that get put on hold,”  he added. “I think it was very prudent what the president did, but I think we’ve learned a lot.”

He says the government will step up and provide the financial support needed to keep the country moving forward and workers employed.

“We have the Fed program, we have Main Street [lending program], which is going to be now up and running, and we’re prepared to go back to Congress for more money to support the American worker,” he said. “So we’re going to get everybody back to work. That’s my No. 1 job working with the president and we’re going to do that.”