SMU Community Chat with Ken Simonson of Associated General Contractors

Ken Simonson, self-proclaimed optimist and chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America, offered a fairly pessimistic forecast for the construction sector during Wednesday’s SMU Community Chat. Real GDP fell 4.8 percent in the first quarter due to the coronavirus shutdowns, he said, the worst quarterly contraction since 2008. “I consider myself an incurable optimist, but not in this case. To see this steep a drop for an event that basically hit in the last three weeks of March is shocking and ominous.”

PS – If you’d like to see past Community Chat webinars, you can find those here.