Talk:Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom

Attribution notice
Note: parts of this article are taken from an earlier revision of the article COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, per Wikipedia's licensing policy. Capewearer (talk) 07:28, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Retail has already been written on another page. Re-ogranise?
The retail impact in the UK is already being documented here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_on_retail#United_Kingdom

Should we move this to its own page and link to it from:
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_on_retail
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_the_United_Kingdom
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impact_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_in_the_United_Kingdom

Jayflux (talk) 20:05, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 12 May 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: do not move. A consensus exists against a page move here. While the nominator has proposed this article's naming convention should fit in with other economic articles on recessions, those opposing the move claiming the article's focus is not necessarily about a recession, but about the economic impact of an event. (non-admin closure) – SportingFlyer  T · C  00:06, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom → COVID-19 recession in the United Kingdom – Following naming convention of other articles about recessions in the economic history of the United States and Commonwealth of Nations countries. CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:10, 12 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Linked requested moves: New Zealand · United Kingdom · United States · Ireland


 * Oppose "Recession" has quite a specific definition in the UK, which are listed (and sourced) in the final paragraph here. This may well be the case, but also this article has a wider scope, including (but not limited to), fund-rasing, panic-buying, reduction in air travel, etc.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 07:04, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
 * As per Office of National Statistics and Federal Reserve Economic Data, the UK economy experienced two consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth for Q1 and Q2 2020, so the UK economy meets your definition of a "recession". -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 15:46, 14 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I think the article has more scope than just a recession, per my above comments.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 16:04, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I think that what you cite as necessitating a broader scope isn't justified. The decline in air travel, panic-buying, etc. all fall within the scope of a recession. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 16:50, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
 * As for the decline in charitable fundraising, this shows in real GDP as Y = C + I + G under I for investment as many charitable organizations typically invest the money that is donated to them in market mutual funds rather than using it for expenditure. Investment, as economists define the term, primarily refers to capital investments by firms (although in recent years, economists have begun to include housing for households as a capital investment), but I = S, or investment equals savings because Y – C – G = S = I, because national income minus consumption minus government spending is the cumulative national savings (while national income minus tax revenue minus consumption is private savings and tax revenue minus government spending is public savings). -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:06, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to change my mind here, so please stop pinging me. Thanks.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 07:48, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm only leaving the responses to fully explain why the examples for the position you take are not justified if you actually know introductory macroeconomics for posterity regardless of whether this requested move is approved or not. I don't care if you change your opinion or not. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 14:44, 15 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Strongly Support: As per my comments above. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 17:02, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose: The "Economic impact of" title seems more objective and somewhat different in scope. The "COVID-19 recession" title seems to promote a name rather than simply being informative, and the word "recession" implies a specific definition and scope. An article about a recession is a different subject. An article about a recession would discuss the factors relating to that recession – regardless of whether those factors have anything to do with the COVID-19 pandemic or not. And an article about the economic impact of a pandemic would discuss the economic impacts relating to the pandemic –  regardless of whether those economic impacts fall within the scope of a recession or not. —&#8239;BarrelProof (talk) 20:04, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
 * We are clearly going in circles. The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was a supply shock to the global economy initiated by the national lockdowns that produced economic contractions in many countries around the world (including most of the G20 – the countries that account for nine-tenths of the gross international product). While there are recovery periods following official contractions, I don't know what other economic impacts you could possibly have in mind that fall outside of the recession and recovery. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 20:24, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I apologize in advance if my tone seems rude. I've just taken enough economic courses to understand basic macroeconomics and I'm amazed at how little of it is apparently understood by even people who've studied the subject formally. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 20:28, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
 * If the article becomes about the recession rather than about the economic impact of COVID-19, then it should also discuss other factors affecting the economy that are related to the recession, regardless of whether those factors have any relationship to COVID-19 or not. Do you think that is desirable? —&#8239;BarrelProof (talk) 15:41, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, again, I'm not sure what other factors affecting the economy that are related to the recession that you are referring to. The yield curve in the U.S. Treasury Securities market inverted in August 2019, but by the middle of the following month, it had returned was returning to normal. It did not re-invert until late January 2020, after news of COVID-19 had begun to spread. Most benchmark stock market indices in G20 countries, as per the 2020 stock market crash article, did not begin their bear market declines until late February 2020. So what factors are you referring to? -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:35, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Or excuse me, was back to normal October 2019. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 02:47, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
 * And the yield curve first inverted in May 2019. I think your confusion stems from a misunderstanding of the relationship between business cycles and credit cycles. The assumption that credit cycles cause business cycles is the heterodox viewpoint within macroeconomics, while the mainstream view is that the business cycles and credit cycles are not really related (and some mainstream economists are skeptical that bubbles even occur). -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 02:57, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
 * To be clear, the corporate debt bubble is ongoing even though the recession in the United States has over been since Q3 2020. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:12, 18 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose - The current article focusses on much more than just the recession, which is currently a small part and not even mentioned in the lead (though this is also too short). As such the proposed title is not a good descriptor of the current article. |→ Spaully ~talk~ 21:48, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I disagree. All sections refer to different sectors of the British economy which would be represented in real GDP, and thus within the scope of the definition of a recession (two consecutive quarters of contracting real GDP) and a recovery (economic expansion following a contraction before unemployment rate falls to only structural and frictional levels i.e. full employment). -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:27, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support no need for wordy MOS:EUPHEMISMs. Also, can we centralize these discussion?—blindlynx (talk) 02:53, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think "economic impact" is a euphemism. Economic impact can be severe – even more severe than a recession. For example, the Economics of climate change could involve devastation on a massive scale. —&#8239;BarrelProof (talk) 23:24, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Generally yes but in this case the economic impact is a recession, there is no need to dance around it—blindlynx (talk) 13:30, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think "economic impact" is "dancing around" anything. Economic impact can be severe – even more severe than a recession. —&#8239;BarrelProof (talk) 22:10, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Oppose Most of this article is talking about things that government has done to support sectors, the positive impact on certain industry types and the negative of others. In addition, I have yet to see the BOE or BG declare that we are in a recession. In addition the recession would be an effect of the pandemic not a causation of COVID 19. Games of the world (talk) 08:55, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Possibly misleading graphic?
I think the graphic currently displayed in the infobox for this article (File:IMF World Economic Outlook January 2021 Real GDP growth rate (map).svg) has the potential to be misleading. It colours countries based on their projected GDP growth in 2021. A casual reader will see this and assume that a lower projected GDP growth indicates a bigger impact from COVID-19, but this is not the case. For example, a country that experienced a severe shock in 2020 might be projected a much higher growth in GDP in 2021 than e.g. a country which experienced no shock at all.

I don't have the data on me to know whether this is in particular the case with this graphic and the UK, but the point is that the graphic communicates information that it does not in fact contain, which sounds like a problem.

And as a separate issue, in the article there is no key as to what the colours in the graphic mean. –♫CheChe♫ talk 10:25, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Updates needed?
The narrative appears to stop within 2020 with some "look forward" to 2021. There were still effects on the economy beyond 2022, with the government not fully implementing its "Living with Covid" strategy until summer of 2022. Up to then there were still mandatory periods of self isolation (I myself undertook one during March 2022 when I contracted but recovered from Covid), so there would be some additional working days lost.Cloptonson (talk) 06:28, 15 April 2023 (UTC)