section_path: Economic impact by continent, region and country/North America/United States
section_name: United States
paragraph_text: United States
  
  The viral outbreak was cited by many companies in their briefings to shareholders, but several maintained confidence that they would not be too adversely affected by short-term disruption due to "limited" exposure to the Chinese consumer market. Those with manufacturing lines in mainland China warned about possible exposure to supply shortages, while others cautioned that large corporations and the wealthy could exploit the crisis for economic gain in line with the Shock Doctrine, as has occurred after past pandemics
  
  Silicon Valley representatives expressed worries about serious disruption to production lines, as much of the technology sector relies on factories in mainland China. Since there had been a scheduled holiday over Lunar New Year, the full effects of the outbreak on the tech sector were considered to be unknown as of 31 January 2020, according to The Wall Street Journal.
  
  Cities with high populations of Chinese residents have seen an increase in demand for face masks to protect against the virus; many are purchasing masks to mail to relatives in China, where there is a shortage of masks. As of February 2020, many stores in the United States had sold out of masks. This mask shortage has caused an increase in prices.
  
  Universities in the United States have warned about a significant impact on their income due to a large number of Chinese international students potentially unable to attend classes.
  
  The Washington Post reported in February that President Donald Trump told advisors that he did not want the government to say or do anything that might spook the stock market, on concerns a large-scale outbreak could hurt his reelection chances.
  
  On 27 February, a report by Goldman Sachs forecast that it believes American companies "will generate no earnings growth in 2020," wiping out an earnings recovery that was expected for the year after "lackluster profit reports for most of 2019"
  
  On 27 February, U.S. stocks were on their way to the largest loss for a week since 2008, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1190 points in one day. On 28 February the average dropped below 25000 briefly. The Dow Jones ended the week down 12.4 percent, the S&P 500 Index 11.5 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite down 10.5 percent. Stocks fell to 18,592 points (Dow average) on 23 March after a procedural Senate vote on a coronavirus economic stimulus bill failed for the second time in two days.
  
  On 7 March, US stocks fell by 7 percent, triggering a temporary halt in trading, which was also aided by the 2020 Russia–Saudi Arabia oil price war.
  
  On the evening of 11 March, the National Basketball Association announced that the rest of its season would be suspended indefinitely, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) announced that its men's and women's basketball tournaments would be played without fans. The following day, the NCAA announced that all championship events throughout all sports would be cancelled until 2020–21.
  
  In April, nearly a quarter of residents (renters and homeowners) did not pay full housing costs. Some did not pay rent/mortgage at all, while others did not make full payment. The difficulties experienced by many tenants during the pandemic have sparked a movement to cancel rent, which is advocated by some activists, organizations, and politicians.
  
  According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, male unemployment increased sharply from 3.55 million in February to 11 million in April 2020, while female unemployment (lower than the pre-crisis men's) rose from 2.7 million to 11.5 million in the same period.
  
  In early May, a Washington Post-Ipsos poll revealed racial disparities between adult workers who were laid off or furloughed since the beginning of the outbreak: layoffs affected 20 percent of Hispanic workers, 16 percent of black workers, 11 percent of white workers, and 12 percent of workers of other races.
  
  Many workers were furloughed or laid off as a result of business and school closures and the cancellation of public events. During April more than 20 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance, an all-time record, and the national unemployment rate was reported as 14.7% – the highest monthly rate since record keeping was begun in 1948. The rise in unemployment may have contributed to protracted nationwide civil unrest.
  
  For first quarter 2020, health care spending dropped 18 percent. 42,000 health care workers lost their jobs in March, and 1.4 million in April, as most hospitals postponed non-essential procedures. People who were left ended up doing the jobs of others who were furloughed.
  
  Although the United States government is the world's largest borrower, credit card debt in the country fell below $1 trillion in May 2020 for the first time since May 2011, declining for the previous three months. This was due to a decrease in both personal income and disposible personal income while personal savings rates nearly doubled. A job reports validated the decline after indicating that three million jobs were added in June 2020, compared to the 20 million jobs lost throughout the pandemic.
  
  In a Business Economics article published on 7 December 2020, Xiaobing Shu, Christine Chmura & James Stinchcomb claimed that "COVID-19 has caused a significant decline in labor demand, by as much as 30%, measured by the number of job advertisements. But the pandemic did not result in noticeable changes in advertised wages."
  
  In December 2020, economist David Choi at Goldman Sachs argued that the U.S. economy would recover faster than expected as impact on the parts of the economy most susceptible to the recent coronavirus spread weren't being affected as severely. On the flipside, Alejandra Grindal at Ned Davis Research, argued that the economy could get worse if the pandemic worsens prior to the deployment of vaccines in Q2 2021, after which the economy would see "a pretty sharp recovery not only in U.S. economic activity, but also global economic activity".
  
  Nearly 20 million adults – 9 percent of all adults in the country – reported that their household sometimes or often didn't have enough to eat in the last seven days. Even consumers with jobs have stopped spending. Retail sales plunged 20 percent from February to April, with very large declines in categories like clothing and accessory stores (down 89 percent) and department stores (down 45 percent). The personal saving rate jumped to 33 percent in March from 8 percent in February.
  
  Unemployment increased significantly in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in the United States, most enterprises that adopted advanced digital technologies were able to avert worker reductions more significantly than firms who did not digitally adapt.