This is the first recession I can remember living through. I don't remember 2008 at all since I was a kid and NZ was barely affected by it.
This is a much worse recession than 2008, but in my day to day life, nothing has changed for me. Things feel exactly the same. The economy might have shrunk 20%, but life seems to still go on. Nothing has disappeared because of it. The things I know are still here, the surroundings I know have stayed mostly the same.
I've always had an expectation that the atmosphere and feeling in a recession would be different. Things feel absolutely normal for me. The only change has been on charts and paper. It hasn't made any difference to me if the economy was $300 billion or $250 billion now.
Reading back on the news on previous recessions, you get a feel of a dire situation. You read that buildings are boarded up. You read that there is a visible increase in homelessness. You read that kids go to school without shoes. You see people in destroyed attire. There is just supposed to be a general negative atmosphere in society. At least that is the impression I've had from reading the news previously. Currently I'm just not seeing any of that. That isn't to say that it isn't happening. It just doesn't seem widespread and/or a national catastrophe.
Am I just talking too soon or just naive? I just had a different expectation but things feel exactly the same to me.
So strictly speaking economically the US just entered recession territory, I do not know much about the NZ situation. This one is a weird one though because most of the time a recession occurs due to an overinflated market crashing or a prolonged economic decline due to stagnancy, this one however was created somewhat artificially, or by choice rather. Instead of jobs and demand disappearing due to market forces it's almost the reverse, jobs and demand were halted creating a dissipation of the the market forces driving them.
I may be wrong but I believe there still is a lot of demand but people have been denied the ability to provide for this demand in many areas (especially small businesses which have been disproportionately affected). I predict that once many of the restrictions are lifted there will be a spike in economic activity which, unless stimulated in some fashion, will dissipate before a slow recovery (3-4 years).
Things will change of course, the real estate market, which in many cities is at insane levels of hyper-inflated demand, will likely shift as many operations have realized that downsizing their office spaces is a very doable economic proposal. Also the acceleration of the closure of many brick and mortar stores will likely occur.
It is a scary place though, the popular industry in the area where I grew up has been hit hard and a lot of my friends who stayed in the area will feel the hurt sooner or later. Where I am there hasn't been a spike in homelessness yet because all evictions have been suspended and I guess there's some housing assistance program (I don't know if it is actually helping). I just try to do little things like giving blood and helping portion/clean produce at my local food bank because it's really the only thing I can do.