The pandemic has wrecked the economy and it's getting worse

Lots of job losses are on the way. The chief economist at the St. Louis Fed says unemployment could reach thirty percent.

Economist Hank Lewis at Lone Star College says Houston's energy sector is suffering.

"Any type of energy that's involved in some level of oil harvesting that is more expensive than the current price of gas would dictate, especially fracking for example, they're not going to be doing too well. There'll be layoffs out in the field especially and some of the analysts as well."

Lewis says Houston is famous for its restaurants and they are certainly suffering.

"Some of them have actually drained the last of their personal savings trying to keep their staff paid as long as they can before having to downsize or shrink back the scale of operations."

But Lewis points out this is temporary and the economy will roar back to life soon. In this case, what goes down will come up.

"It would be a temporary situation; as we get the Coronavirus under control I do believe that after it is under control people would go back to work and we would see a lot of repressed spending coming to the forefront."

Lewis says Houston's energy sector, service industries -- especially restaurants -- and truckers are among the hardest hit by the effects of the pandemic.


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