“Town Crier” newsletter – Briefs from the Region (2) – 4/29/20
According to projections from The Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana, Montana’s economy may take years to recover to pre-pandemic levels, as early as 2022 but possibly longer. The report calls the economic impacts of COVID-19 “more severe than anything Montana has experienced in the postwar period.” There is still room to take that projection with a grain of salt: “We did this study on the effects of COVID on the Montana economy with some trepidation, because it’s still a moving target,” said Patrick Barkey, the BBER director, reports the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. “We do expect to see a pretty strong return to growth, but even with that return to growth, it’s going to take a while.” The report contends 2020’s collective personal income will be $3.9 billion less than that predicted in December 2019, a “visibly larger” drop than the one that occurred during the Great Recession. The impacts to Montana’s economy will be compounded, “where more general fund money comes from income tax payments than anywhere else.”
