The economic situation around the globe has been in a major period of disruption and rampant changes. The aftermath of the main pandemic affected the world in a very complex and multifaceted way. January is one of the most important times of the year when related to the economy, since it sets a precedent for how the year as a whole will compare to those before. The IMF (International Monetary Fund) has made major predictions for the year as a whole.

The major element that the IMF predicted was a slowdown in global growth rate. They predicted the current global growth rate of 3.2% to 3.4% in 2022 would lower to around 2.7% or 2.9%. This shows almost perfectly how impactful the COVID-19 global pandemic was on changing the status quo of the global economy. The IMF also predicts for the global growth rate to rebound.

For something specifically related to the US, during January alone, 517,000 jobs were added to the national economy. This shows that threats of major recession are being exaggerated and any claims of a 2009 housing crisis level threat are mostly false. There are a few threats about inflation rate, due to the massive amount of money injected into the economy during the major threats in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For foreign news, major things are happening in China. After an extreme amount of often unseen protests in China, the Chinese government gave up on their harsh and restrictive “Zero Covid” Plan. They reopened the country and massively lightened restrictions. As an adverse effect, this has caused a major spread of COVID around the country, since, due to their extreme policies, their population was unable to gain any significant resilience to the disease as a whole.

The economy will always have an impact on every single person. Money is important to everyone. So, for students who have jobs, students who buy groceries, or students who just want to understand the world around them better, having a broad knowledge of the economy is extremely helpful. The world is in a very rocky place at the moment, plenty of young people lack the security that their parents and grandparents grew up with. But, ultimately, you can only hope the economy does its best so people can live and grow to their fullest potential.