Unemployment, stock market volatility, oil prices, and financial crisis, all are major reasons why the U.S has a high chance of going into another great depression. The problem is these were all issues before the COVID-19 virus even took the track.

According to CNN, more than Fifty percent of the county’s population believes we are headed straight into another great depression. Before the coronavirus, more than twenty-five percent of the U.S population was unemployed, now that the most COVID-19 cases are in the U.S unemployment rates went from Thirty-five million to Seven-hundred and Fourteen million in less than two weeks. This virus has taken hold of the world economy. In the worst possible outcome, we are looking at an epidemic that we have no clue when it will end, possibly not being able to go back to healthy everyday lives for a very long time.

A significant reason for the economic depression is stock market volatility. The market swoops down and up four-hundred points a day. Where it ends is all that matters because it can affect what the world can do. In 2008 the stock market took the biggest hit in one day. It dropped 774 points down. Now today on March 10th, the stock markets 774 points were blown out of the water. The market hit a new low of 3,000 points down because of the virus’s fears and contentions. This number of positions has started the world to worry about how the rest of this pandemic will take hold and affect how we will live our lives.

Oil prices are incredibly volatile, and it started even before the virus. In 2016 prices for oil rose to fifty dollars a barrel after plummeting to a 13-year low of twenty-six dollars a barrel. Last week the oil price in the U.S hit a low that we have not had since 2002 of twenty dollars a barrel. The oil price forecast for the next thirty years reveals that oil prices could increase to over two-hundred dollars a barrel to meet demands from China and emerging markets, but now that we have been affected by the virus, it could be a lot more because of it is hard for paying employment for people to work especially for oil companies.

The world economy has been surprised and devastated by the coronavirus. At the moment, that government has not gotten a full plan to reconstruct from this, all we can do is hope for the best and stay safe.