Not only has COVID-19 created a health crisis but also an economic crisis. The economy has slowed down greatly during this pandemic. Places saw demands in products, supply shocks, and financial problems all at once. Our consumer goods declined around 8.7 percent from February to March making it the biggest month-to-month decrease we have seen in years. Since everything that has happened because of COVID-19, the economy in the future will probably not get back to how it was before for a couple of years because right now the unemployment rate is still really high. With the colder weather this winter, it won't help to try to get people outside for outdoor activities such as dining.  Overall, COVID-19 has made one of the biggest negative impacts our history has seen for the economy.

COVID-19 is having a huge impact on businesses and is affecting most of them for the worse right now. When the businesses are not getting as many customers, then the sales are going to drop affecting the economy tremendously. To try and stop the spread of COVID-19, stores and restaurants were starting to limit the number of people they were allowing into their stores which made it so places like restaurants started doing outdoor dining and stores had to have lines outside of their buildings. Since it's starting to become winter, people don't want to eat outside in the cold and will end up not coming to the restaurants or stores at all. People don't want to sit in a line and wait to get into a store and would rather order things online. It also makes it so the stores can’t have as many people which means not as many workers, which is making the unemployment rate go up. It has been very hard for people to find new jobs because most places were reducing the number of people allowed in their stores and restaurants. Making it so no one really could go into any places in the first place. No one was necessarily looking for new people to hire because they would just rehire who they already laid off. In the article, The impact of COVID-19 on small business outcomes and expectations, says, “Impacts also varied across industries, with retail, arts and entertainment, personal services, food services, and hospitality businesses all reporting employment declines exceeding 50%; in contrast, finance, professional services, and real estate-related businesses experienced less disruption, as these industries were better able to move to remote production” (Bartik 2020). This quote shows the variety of the different businesses and what they went through during the pandemic. Some of them did great online and their businesses improved, but a lot of them either had to get shut down and go online, which wasn’t ideal for a lot of places, or lose a lot of employees. Once COVID-19 does get better most of these people will get rehired and you'll see businesses start to reopen again allowing the economy to get better. However, this pandemic isn't getting better at a fast past and will take a couple of years for the economy to get back to the way it was before.

Our Economy is mainly based on consumer spending which decreased because of the unemployment rate going up and the worry about getting COVID-19. Since people were unemployed, they had to start worrying about their household finances due to the economic downturn and weren't able to buy things that weren’t as necessary.  In the article, What’s weighing on consumer spending: Fear of COVID-19 and its economic impact, it says “Consumer spending has borne the brunt of COVID-19's impact on the economy. Real personal consumption expenditure (PCE), which accounts for a little less than 70% of GDP, fell by 10.1% in Q2 2020 compared to Q1 2020, the sharpest quarterly contraction on record” (Levin 2020). This quote shows how much consumer spending affects our economy and how much we rely on it. It also talks about how our GDP (Gross Domestic Product) has had a huge decline in all categories, but especially consumer spending. Studies have shown that this has been the biggest GDP drop seen on record for everything. Once people start getting their jobs back it will allow them to not have to only focus on their financial problems as much. However, we are not sure when that will be. A lot of people would go out and buy things and since COVID-19 happened, people just like to stay in their houses and not buy things as much. People were worried about getting COVID-19 and their health more than buying things. Once more people get vaccinated and numbers start decreasing, people will start going out more and not being as scared. In The Great Gatsby, the economy plays a huge role and Fitzgerald portrays what the economy was like during the 1920s. In the 1920’s you either had money or you didn’t, it was never in between. In The Great Gatsby, they show how your wealth has a major impact on your social class. All everyone cared about was money. An example from The Great Gatsby is when Nick Caraway says, “Her voice was full of money” (Fitzgerald 77). This quote shows how money is a part of you and when you are born with money people can tell. That’s all someone looks for in a person. People like Gatsby, Tom, and Daisy had money and wanted to buy everything to look good to other people. People like them were the reason the economy was doing so well because they were contributing to the consumer spending of the 1920s. If there weren't people who had money during the ’20s, then the economy would be like how it is now. When you don’t have money then consumer spending is reduced, then affects the economy. It is all just a ripple effect. A lot of companies use international supply chains because it can allow them to provide different products that wouldn't be found in the United States. The companies are dealing with shortages of supplies because not as many people are making things internationally because of the same problem we are having in the United States with unemployment. Also because some companies are trying to minimize the risk of spreading COVID-19 from one country to another. Companies that use international supply chains, people might stop buying things from their company because they could be scared of COVID-19 spreading internationally. The consumer rate will then go down a lot because there are a ton of businesses that use international supply chains and they will start seeing a decrease in demand for their products. Which will then make it so they don’t have to make as many products so then they don’t need to make that many international trades. Once COVID- 19 starts getting better then people will want to buy things from these companies and then international trade will start going up helping the economy to get better.

Since businesses have been having to shut down since we were quarantined a lot of people were being laid off making the unemployment rate go up a lot. Stores are now becoming remote since they do not need as many employees. For example, people at restaurants and clothing stores didn’t have anything to do because they couldn't help online. Making it so a lot of those employees had to get laid off by their jobs. A lot of people then didn’t make any source of income besides unemployment income. However, that wasn’t as much money as people normally would make. This made it so people couldn’t buy things as much as they wanted and affected the economy immensely. However once things start getting better with COVID-19 and not as many cases come up, the employment rate should start to go up again and the same with the economy. Some companies have permanently closed forever making it so everyone who worked there has to find a new job now. Since this happened to a lot of companies, and since places have decreased the capacity of people allowed in their building. Not that many places are hiring people so there will end up being a lot of people unemployed still. In the article,  Coronavirus: How the Pandemic Has Changed the World Economy, it says “In the United States, the proportion of people out of work hit a yearly total of 8.9%, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), signaling an end to a decade of jobs expansion” (Brown, Jones, Palumbo 2021).  This quote shows how many people are unemployed just in the United States and how it will have a long-term effect on Jobs. Before Covid hit, it says that there were only 3.7% of Americans that were unemployed. During the pandemic, the number of unemployed people more than doubled, and there are still a ton more people outside of the United States. In a couple of years when COVID-19 starts looking better, these stores could regain their strength and allow these stores to open back up and possibly get back into the business. There are already things like this happening today and we are already starting to see our economy grow, but not as much as we would like.

In conclusion, the economy has been going through some rough times during COVID-19 and hopefully, it will start to get better in the next couple of years. It was one of the biggest drops that our economy has had in years. It is going to leave a big change in our society and how we work. During difficult times like this, for example, The Great Depression, the economy was able to bounce back even if it took a little longer than people had hoped. The future of the economy is out in the open right now. However, to be able to get back on track, we have to have the hard times that we are going through. Overall, COVID-19 has made one of the biggest negative impacts our history has seen for the economy.