If the government shutdown lasts another two weeks, the total cost to the U.S. economy would exceed the price of building the proposed border wall.
According to an estimate by S&P Global Ratings, it will only take another two weeks to cost the economy more than $6 billion, exceeding the $5.7 billion that President Donald Trump demanded to fund his proposed border wall. The U.S. economy will have lost $3.6 billion by Friday, according to S&P.
“We estimated that this shutdown could shave approximately $1.2 billion off real GDP in the quarter for each week that part of the government is closed. That may seem like pennies for the world’s biggest economy, but it means a lot to those workers trying to cover their household costs without their paychecks,” Beth Ann Bovino, S&P’s chief U.S. economist, said in a note on Friday.