. >> joining us now is mark zandy, the chief economist with moody emphasis analytics here to talk about and take your questions on the economy. mr. zandy, what is the state of our economy right now? >> greta, it's struggling. we saw that in the december data for the economy. we lost jobs in december. retail sales declined. claims for unemployment insurance remain consistently above about a million per week. just for context in a well functioning economy we should be seeing something like 200 and 250,000 initial claims for unemployment insurance. sentiment is very soft. and obviously it's not hard to connect the straugling economy back to the pandemic. the reintensification of the virus, the hospitalizations, the deaths has had an impact on the entire global economy but also here at home in the united states so the economy is weak. >> what if congress and president trump had not signed into law the covid relief money that we saw the first round of it and the money that followed? what if that hadn't happened? >> it would have been much worse. the support from the federal government has be