The International Monetary Fund had some unfortunate news to share today—an outlook that somehow was even worse than expected. Finance experts had already been crossing their fingers over the forecast for the IMF this year, but as the old saying goes: things can always get worse.
Inflation was already riding a major wave and now it seems as though this trend is only going to continue. If you ask the IMF, they believe the global economy will only grow a minuscule 3.2% this year, which is less than the initially predicted 3.6%—a percentage that was already pretty tame to begin with. To add further perspective, early 2022 brought projections that were around 4.4%, so it’s safe to say that progress has been nothing short of a disaster.
U.S. growth projections were also taken down a few notches, sliding from its 3.7% forecast in April to a lowly 2.3%. According to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook, “The risks to the outlook are overwhelmingly tilted to the downside.”
But while the economy looks bleak, there are still those who remain optimistic, citing occasional victories as beacons of hope. These are great to celebrate, but realists are more concerned with trying to stop the bleeding while it’s happening.