The United States government has a history of paying its bills on time. Many people, however, are worried about what would happen if the U.S. defaults on debt that it owes lenders. Default means to fail to do what rule or law requires. In finance, it means being unable or unwilling to pay back loans. “No corner of the global economy will be spared” if the U.S. government defaulted and the problem were not solved quickly, said Mark Zandi. He is chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, a risk advising business. The Associated Press reports that Zandi and two of his coworkers suggested that, even if the U.S. did not pay its debt for only a week, 1.5 million jobs in the U.S. could be lost. If the default were to last longer into the summer, Zandi’s team’s research suggests 7.8 million jobs could be lost. And they estimate a huge decrease in the stock market would cause a $10 trillion loss in household wealth.
