The loss of almost 10 percentage points of GDP and about 25 per cent of industrial output during the crisis inevitably had a severe impact on Italian banks’ balance sheets and on the quality of their loans.
We were experiencing the longest expansion on record, and unemployment had reached historic lows. However, that is a national average that can gloss over stark realities. That economic good fortune had eluded pockets across the country, including Youngstown. A particular cruelty of the pandemic has been its disproportionate effects on many areas that were already suffering.