People wear face masks as a precaution against the coronavirus as they play roulette on the Fourth of July at the Strat hotel-casino Saturday, July 4, 2020, in Las Vegas.
AP Photo/John Locher
(Michael McGrady) — Nevada experienced one of the worst gross domestic product (GDP) contractions in the nation during the first quarter.
Both Nevada and New York saw an 8.2 percent GDP decrease in the first quarter, declines induced by COVID-19.
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and the Department of Commerce found that accommodation and food services, including finance, insurance, health care, social assistance, arts and entertainment, and recreation, were “the leading contributors to the decrease in real GDP nationally.” Nevada’s decline in accommodations and food services were leading contributors to a statewide economic crash.
“Estimates of GDP by [the] state were impacted by the response to the spread of COVID-19, as governments issued ‘stay-at-home’ orders,” the BEA said. “This led to rapid changes in demand, as businesses and schools switched to remote work or canceled operations, and consumers canceled, restricted, or redirected their spending.”
In their analysis, BEA also noted that the “full economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be quantified in the GDP by state estimates” and “the impacts are generally embedded in source data and cannot be separately identified.”
The office of Gov. Steve Sisolak administration has formalized and released its COVID-19 budget proposal, which features steep cuts. Sisolak has proposed to the state legislature over $500 million in fiscal reductions in agency budgets.
SmartAsset, a financial technology firm, in March projected that Las Vegas and three other Nevada cities were among the most at risk of suffering negative economic impacts brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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