Global growth is projected at –4.9 percent in 2020, 1.9 percentage points below the April 2020 World Economic Outlook (WEO) forecast. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a more negative impact on activity in the first half of 2020 than anticipated, and the recovery is projected to be more gradual than previously forecast. In 2021 global growth is projected at 5.4 percent. Overall, this would leave 2021 GDP some 6½ percentage points lower than in the pre-COVID-19 projections of January 2020. The adverse impact on low-income households is particularly acute, imperiling the significant progress made in reducing extreme poverty in the world since the 1990s.

The COVID-19 pandemic is inflicting high and rising human costs worldwide, and the necessary protection measures are severely impacting economic activity. As a result of the pandemic, the global economy is projected to contract sharply by –3 percent in 2020, much worse than during the 2008–09 financial crisis. In a baseline scenario--which assumes that the pandemic fades in the second half of 2020 and containment efforts can be gradually unwound—the global economy is projected to grow by 5.8 percent in 2021 as economic activity normalizes, helped by policy support. The risks for even more severe outcomes, however, are substantial.

Having a global pandemic steamroll its way through a state’s economy is no one’s good idea of enacting budgetary restraints. But facing reality is not optional. Texas has faced budget tightening in its corrections system before. So, legislators must address this situation in a similar fashion— by once again prioritizing finite resources while, this time, seeking to get a handle on a costly, aging prison population and reducing technical violations that undermine the entire purpose of community supervision in the first place.

Chances are that you believe you are in the middle class—nearly everyone in the United States does. Doctors and lawyers believe they are middle-class; so, too, do welders and waiters. In a 2015 Pew survey, only 10 percent of Americans said they considered themselves lower-class and just 1 percent thought they were upper-class.

Earnings have been flat or stagnant for many middle-class workers in the United States while health care, education, and housing costs are rising. Surveys show that Americans accurately perceive these pressures too and share a broad belief that the middle class is struggling. Seven in ten respondents to a Northwestern Mutual survey said that the middle class was staying the same or shrinking. One-third said the middle class might disappear entirely.

Every state experienced an uptick in total personal income last year as historic gains in unemployment benefits, federal aid, and other public assistance drove the sharpest annual growth in two decades. Without government support, most states would have sustained declines in personal income—a key economic indicator—as the COVID-19 pandemic took a toll on business activity.

Discretionary spending by the federal government totaled $1.6 trillion in 2020, of which $714 billion was for national defense and $914 billion was for nondefense activities.

In this document, the Commission continues to comprehensively reform inmate calling services rates to ensure just and reasonable rates for interstate and international inmate calling services. Specifically, the Commission proposes to lower the current interstate rate caps to $0.14 per minute for debit, prepaid, and collect calls from prisons and $0.16 per minute for debit, prepaid, and collect calls from jails. The Commission also proposes to cap rates for international inmate calling services, which remain uncapped today.

Following a political standoff that briefly delayed his annual speech to the nation, President Donald Trump will deliver his second State of the Union address on Tuesday night. The speech comes amid a debate between Trump and congressional Democrats over border security – one that recently led to the longest federal government shutdown in history.

As Trump’s speech takes the spotlight, here’s a look at public opinion on important issues facing the country, drawn from Pew Research Center’s recent surveys.

This site shows the monthly and quarterly US employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for 2019.

The Economies Adding the Most to Global Growth in 2019

Global economics is effectively a numbers game.

As long as the data adds up to economic expansion on a worldwide level, it’s easy to keep the status quo rolling. Companies can shift resources to the growing segments, and investors can put capital where it can go to work.

At the end of the day, growth cures everything – it’s only when it dries up that things get hairy.

Breaking Down Global Growth in 2019

Today’s chart uses data from Standard Chartered and the IMF to break down where economic growth is happening in 2019 using purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. Further, it also compares the share of the global GDP pie taken by key countries and regions over time.

The October 2019 Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR) identifies the current key vulnerabilities in the global financial system as the rise in corporate debt burdens, increasing holdings of riskier and more illiquid assets by institutional investors, and growing reliance on external borrowing by emerging and frontier market economies. The report proposes that policymakers mitigate these risks through stricter supervisory and macroprudential oversight of firms, strengthened oversight and disclosure for institutional investors, and the implementation of prudent sovereign debt management practices and frameworks for emerging and frontier market economies.