CBO estimates that real gross domestic product will contract by 11 percent in the second quarter of this year, which is equivalent to a decline of 38 percent at an annual rate, and that the number of people employed will be almost 26 million lower than the number in the fourth quarter of 2019.
In CBO’s projections of the outlook under current law, deficits remain large by historical standards, federal debt grows to 98 percent of GDP by 2030, and the economy expands at an average annual rate of 1.7 percent from 2021 to 2030.
CBO’s economic forecasts have been comparable in quality to those of the Administration and the Blue Chip consensus. Large errors in CBO’s forecasts tend to reflect challenges faced by all forecasters.
CBO has developed “rules of thumb” that show how changes in four key economic variables might affect revenues, outlays, and deficits. An interactive workbook allows users to see the budgetary effects of their own alternative scenarios.
How much do companies benefit from corporate inversions? In this report, CBO analyzes the reasons for and effects of inversions. CBO also projects how inversions and certain other strategies will affect future U.S. corporate tax revenues.
The United States has 14 preferential trade agreements with 20 of its trading partners. In CBO's view, the consensus among economic studies is that, all told, such agreements have had small positive effects on the U.S. economy.
