Shutdown Cost the US Economy $24 Billion

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Time Magazine reports that according to an estimate from Standard & Poor's, the government shutdown, which ended with a deal late Wednesday night after 16 days, took $24 billion out of the U.S. economy and reduced projected fourth-quarter GDP growth from 3 percent to 2.4 percent. The breakdown includes about $3.1 billion in lost government services, $152 million per day in lost travel spending, $76 million per day lost because of National Parks being shut down, and $217 million per day in lost federal and contractor wages in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area alone. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers bore the economic brunt of the shutdown but small businesses also suffered from frozen government contracts and stalled business loans. With the deal only guaranteeing government funding through January 15, the situation could grow worse. 'This is a real corrosion on the economy,' says Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics. 'If we have to go down a similar road in the near future, the costs are going to continue to add up.'"

Comments

How much will the Slashdot outage

[Anonymous Coward]

How much will the Slashdot outage cost the economy?

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

That was the lowball estimate. The latest research I've seen is that Obamacare will cost the economy $500 trillion dollars over the next 5 years, will put about 467 million people out of work, and will require mandatory forced sterilizations of anyone who voted Republican or even *thought* about it.

Re:The govenment should just double spending.

[sl4shd0rk]

Clearly the preparers of this report believe in the parable of the broken window

This is no time for Microsoft bashing.