February 2021

This document provides additional information on the economic forecast that CBO initially released on February 1, 2021.

CBO will release The 2021 Long-Term Budget Outlook on Thursday, March 4, at 2:00 p.m. The report will provide projections of federal spending, revenues, deficits, and debt for the next 30 years.

CBO describes how the prices of brand-name prescription drugs are determined in different federal programs and compares drug prices among those programs in 2017.

CBO Director Phillip Swagel spoke about the agency’s latest 10-year budget and economic projections at an event hosted by the Concord Coalition.

If current laws governing taxes and spending generally remain unchanged, CBO projects, in 2021, the federal budget deficit will total $2.3 trillion, federal debt will reach 102 percent of GDP, and real GDP will grow by 3.7 percent.

CBO examined the threat that adversaries equipped with land-attack cruise missiles might pose to the U.S. homeland and estimated the costs of several defensive systems that could be fielded to protect the United States from such attacks.

The federal budget deficit was $738 billion in the first four months of fiscal year 2021, CBO estimates—$348 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last year.

If the Raise the Wage Act of 2021 was enacted in March 2021, the cumulative budget deficit over the 2021–2031 period would increase by $54 billion.

CBO will release The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2021 to 2031 at 2 p.m. on Thursday, February 11. The report will include a brief description of CBO’s latest 10-year budget projections and reprise the economic projections issued this week.

CBO projects that the economic expansion that began in mid-2020 will continue. Real GDP is projected to return to its prepandemic level in mid-2021. The number of people employed is projected to return to its prepandemic level in 2024.