Survey: Business economists see coronavirus as biggest risk

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy faces risks from a potential resurgence of the coronavirus and from the failure so far of Congress to provide additional financial support for struggling individuals and businesses.

That judgment emerges from a survey released Monday by the National Association for Business Economics of 52 forecasters who were polled last month. Among the forecasters, 55 percent said they regarded a second wave of COVID-19 cases as the most serious threat. Twenty percent said they thought a lack of further government economic aid would pose the biggest risk.

The inability of Democrats and Republicans to forge a compromise has meant that unemployed Americans are no longer receiving a federal unemployment benefit. Support for small businesses has also expired. States and localities, many of which have suffered sharp declines in tax revenue, are struggling, too, without further federal assistance.

Similar to many other economists, the NABE's forecasters have estimated that the economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, grew at a 25% annual rate in the just-ended July-September quarter. That would be the largest quarterly gain on records dating to 1947. But it would follow an even bigger contraction in the April-June quarter, when the coronavirus paralyzed much of the economy. For the current October-December quarter, the NABE panel foresees a 4.9% annual growth rate.

The recovery from the pandemic recession, in the view of the forecasters, will remain sluggish in coming months. A majority of them don't expect GDP to return to its pre-pandemic levels until sometime in 2022.

For all of 2020, the panel expects GDP to decline 4.3%. That would be the economy's first full-year contraction since a 2.5% fall in 2009 at the end of the Great Recession. For 2021, the forecasters expect growth of...