Thursday's GDP numbers set a record for the biggest plunge in activity ever recorded, falling almost 33 percent in the second quarter.
By comparison, the worst quarter during the 2008 financial crisis was an 8.4 percent drop in the fourth quarter.
Despite the dismal milestone, the figure was better than some analysts had predicted, noted Tyler Goodspeed, acting chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
"Certainly in today's data we did see what we've been suspecting for months now, which is that in the second quarter of 2020, the United States and indeed global economies experienced the largest adverse macroeconomic shock in decades," Goodspeed told Cheddar.
Also announced Thursday, 1.43 million unemployment claims were filed last week, up from 1.42 million the week before. More than 54 million Americans have filed in the past 18 weeks.
Continuing claims saw an increase as well. There were 17 million continued claims for this week, up from 16 million last week. However, the number is significantly lower than the record high of 25 million in early May.
While the numbers are extreme, Goodspeed said the federal government was quick to react to the coronavirus-driven shutdowns, never before seen at such a scale.
"We've also seen in this data that this shock was of unprecedented scale and speed, but also that the response of the United States federal government was unprecedented in its scale and speed."
Goodspeed noted disposable personal income saw an increase of $1.5 trillion and the savings rate in the second quarter went up about 45 percent.
"That does certainly bode well for consumer spending moving forward, as consumer spending accounts for approximately 70 percent of the U.S. economy," he said.
Markets were mixed Thursday afternoon after the morning announcement.
The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down the agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal. Russell Vought is the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought directed the CFPB in a Saturday night email to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama created it following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
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