Yes, this is what a fall in GDP means

There’s a distressing lack of knowledge concerning reality on display here:

Councils in England fear they will have to make budget cuts of 20% and face a social care funding shortfall of £3.5bn due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Labour claims local authorities are facing a £10bn black hole as they encounter spiralling costs while revenue streams such as parking charges dry up amid the lockdown.

Cuts of up to 21% could be needed to balance the books, according to the analysis by Labour, seen by the Guardian.

This is just what a fall in GDP means. Forget money for the moment, that’s just vouchers showing who gets what. The important thing is the underlying what there is for people to get. That’s what GDP is, the value added, the value produced, within an economy. That has fallen by 5 or 6% just in March and the likelihood is that our April figures, when they arrive, will show a fall of 20 to 30%.

There is, at that rough guess, some 20% less of everything to be had. Therefore everything gets cut by 20%. This is as true of social care as it is of haircuts, beer and motor cars. There are simply less of all those things around - everyone can therefore have fewer of them. This is just what it means to have a fall in GDP.

Of course, there is an answer, open up the economy again, spiced with lot more of that capitalist free marketry red in tooth and claw, and watch GDP bounce back. At which point, and only at that point, will we have the resources to have the level of social care that we used to have. Or the number of haircuts, beer and motor cars. For it is by definition true that richer places can have more of all those things and we are currently poorer, therefore we can have fewer.