Poll: 70% of Americans believe U.S. economy in either recession or depression

April 8 (UPI) -- Amid economic turbulence due to the COVID-19 outbreak, 70 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy is either in a recession or depression, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday.

The survey, based on interviews conducted on April 3-5, found that 40 percent of Americans believe the United States is in a recession and 30 percent believe it is in a depression.

Nine percent more U.S. adults believe the country is in an economic depression and 3 percent more believe it is in a recession from Gallup's previous report last week.

Democrats had the most pessimistic outlook on the economy as 85 percent said they believe the economy is in a recession or depression compared to 68 percent of independents and 53 percent of Republicans.

The survey was conducted as the U.S. Department of Labor said the country lost 701,000 jobs in March and the unemployment rate rose to a historic low of 4.4 percent.

U.S. markets on Wednesday continued to rebound from COVID-19 woes as the Dow Jones closed up 780 points after White House health adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday that the United States should begin to experience a "turn around" in coronavirus cases this week.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday also called for Congress to provide an additional $250 billion in funding for small business loans provided by the so-called Paycheck Protection Program established in a $2.2 trillion coronavirus response bill signed last month.

The survey results were based on self-administered web surveys conducted with a random sample of 3,876 U.S. adults aged 18 and older, with a 3 percent margin of error at the 95 percent confidence level.