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WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy entered a recession in February as the coronavirus struck the nation, a group of economists declared June 8.

Just how deep and swift the U.S. economy’s plunge into a recession has been since the coronavirus pandemic hit the nation was evidenced by a number of reports, including that millions continued to apply for unemployment benefits.

Present conditions signal the bottom of the pandemic’s vertiginous drawdown of the freight market, trucking industry observers said. But other economic conditions, in place earlier in 2019 and 2020, remain as a potential drag.

As state and local governments gradually begin loosening stay-at-home orders issued to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, trucking industry experts are exploring how the industry can best respond to this next phase of the country’s response to the pandemic.

The country’s transportation agencies would receive a funding boost in a coronavirus economic relief measure House Democrats unveiled May 12.

The U.S. economy is likely in the midst of its deepest recession since the end of World War II, when modern records that tracked the nation’s gross domestic product and unemployment rates were standardized.

The record-long U.S. economic expansion is over after almost 11 years, with what’s likely to be the deepest recession in at least eight decades now underway.

Net U.S. trailer orders slipped below 7,600 in March as cancellations sliced the gross tally nearly in half, and production slowed, ACT Research reported.

The U.S. economy likely will shrink when first-quarter gross domestic product figures are released by the federal government’s Bureau of Economic Analysis on April 29.

The trucking industry will play a critical role in the development and implementation of plans to restart the country’s struggling economy, American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear said.