For the economy to recover fully, GDP needs to grow - and growth forecasts form the basis of much of the budget planning when George Osborne gives his speech today.
So, what will happen to GDP? Every three months, the Bank of England produces its inflation report which looks at how the economy is expected to grow. In the latest report, Bank of England governor Mervyn King said:
The projection for four-quarter growth is weaker than in November for much of 2011, following the weak data around the turn of the year … The strength of the recovery is likely to be dampened by the fiscal consolidation
The Bank's reports are available here.
Christine Oliver produced the interactive above - press next and you see how the predictions have become more and more dire - or just reload the page to see the graphic animate. It's the story of how this recession became steadily worse - and may still do so in the future, if the worst predictions come true.
Our friends at Timetric have done some work with this too, which compares the most pessimistic projection from February 2008 with the most optimistic one published in May 2009, in the depths of the recssion. It's scary:
We've extracted the full GDP data from the Office for National Statistics below. What can you do with it?
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