The Great Recession earned its name "Great" because it was really, you know, not so great! But even milder recessions are really bad and even as the headline economic numbers (and stonks!!!) recover, the actual recovery for the people whose lives are damaged by it takes a bit longer.
Early on there was this fantasy that if you just turned the economy off for 6 weeks, put some money out there to tide people over (and the expanded UI actually did that as well as our stupid system is capable of doing that), and then turn it back on again we could just get back to normal. V-shaped recovery!!!
That was always dumb, as I don't think it was a likely scenario even if the virus magically disappeared and the light switch was just flipped on again. But 7 months later... still can't flip the light switch back on! Not fully.
Anyone who thinks there can be a fastish recovery should be asked why the recovery from the Great Recession was so slow? Few are actually willing to give the right answers to that.
