Economist Stephen Moore predicts economy will have ‘swift kind of recovery for the fall’

Economist Stephen Moore predicted Sunday that the U.S. economy will have a “swift kind of recovery for the fall” as the country weathers the economic fallout from coronavirus leading into the summer. 

“It’s going to be a tough summer…as we try to get our feet back on the ground. But I believe that by the end of the summer we could start to see a real recovery,” Moore told radio host John Catsimatidis on Sunday.

His comments come as most states begin reopening their economies in different capacities. In addition, state and local governments have taken a fiscal beating due to spending needed to mitigate the coronavirus. 

Moore, an ally of President Trump and member of the White House coronavirus economic task force, said that public anxiety about going out and resuming economic activity as normal could hamper the economy’s comeback. He noted however, that people will be more apt to brave public life each day. 

“Customers are still a little bit afraid to go outside,” Moore said. “People are nervous. They’re worried about their health.… [But] every day you see more and more people venturing out. You see more and more people getting on the job.”

In the past six weeks, over 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment and that number is only expected to rise in the coming weeks. The jobless numbers coincide with a decline in the U.S.’s GDP, which fell 4.8 percent in the first quarter, the largest contraction since the financial crisis.

The task set before lawmakers and leaders at both the state and federal level is to open the economy and return to pre-pandemic rates of unemployment and growth without triggering a second spike in coronavirus cases — an event that some experts say could be even more devastating economically than the original outbreak. 

Moore says that this reopening process has to be gradual. 

“It will be a slow process… but you’ve got to get going,” Moore said. “I do believe that by the end of the summer we’re going to see a very swift kind of recovery for the fall.”

John Catsimatidis is an investor in The Hill.