Cal State Fullerton economists Anil Puri and Mira Farka provided an optimistic outlook on the national, Southern California and Orange County economies during a virtual presentation of their annual spring economic forecast on April 21.
Puri and Farka, director and co-director, respectively, of the Woods Center for Economic Analysis and Forecasting, cite several reasons for the upbeat assessment: COVID-19 vaccination and virus trends are positive; the government’s response to the crisis has been swift and generous; and the economy has strong underlying fundamentals, helping the recovery to remain resilient.
Puri noted that Orange County took a bigger hit from the pandemic than the rest of the nation. “There’s one primary reason for that: leisure and hospitality are huge employers here. But Disneyland is going to be opening very soon and recovery, I think, will be sharp, but it’ll take some time before we get back to the pre-pandemic level of jobs.”
However, said Farka, “Consumers are sitting on a pile of unspent cash. And household wealth has skyrocketed. This fire power is about to be unleashed as vaccine distribution ramps up and the economy reopens. Welcome to the Roaring ’20s.”
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