STARKVILLE, Miss. (WTVA) -- You've heard people on the news talk about sequestration. But do you really understand what it is?
It's basically a big word for across-the-board budget cuts for agencies and programs run by the federal government for a total of $85 billion in one year.
Those cuts are set to start taking place Friday.
"We're at this time in our nation's history when we're just coming out of the great recession. It was a very steep and prolonged recession, which officially ended in June of 2009. And these are some very austere measures to take place in the economy right now when we're just crawling out this hole," said Dr. Kathleen Thomas, an associate professor of economics at Mississippi State University.
Sequestration was created by the Budget Control Act in 2011 as a last-ditch effort to cut federal spending if no budget agreement could be reached by Congress.
Thomas went on to say that this created a doomsday-like event that causes anxiety for people and the country's markets.
"Households and firms, they all want as much certainty as they can have. It's hard to plan for the future if you're concerned with losing your job," added Williams.
