Closure Cost

According to Trump’s Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, the government closure is knocking 0.13 of a point/week off GDP, not 0.05%/week as previously assumed. If the closure last through March, and that’s a big if, 19Q1 GDP growth would fall by 1.7 percentage points, reducing 19Q1 growth to 0.8% rather than the 2.5% currently forecast. Moreover, the longer the closure, the larger the weekly hit to growth becomes.