WASHINGTON — Evidence of the coronavirus’ devastating impact on the U.S. economy has been steadily emerging, and the signs have grown ominous.

Sales at stores and restaurants plunged in March by the largest amount on records dating back to 1992. The nation’s industrial output fell by the largest amount since the end of World War II. And the outbreak keeps ravaging the global oil market.

That was just Wednesday’s news.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.

The picture will likely worsen in the coming weeks and months. Retail sales — a primary driver of the U.S. economy — are almost surely suffering further during April because business shutdowns will have been in effect for the entire month, compared with just half of March.

Sales of homes and cars will also keep declining. And economists have forecast that Thursday’s weekly report on applications for unemployment benefits will show that millions of Americans sought jobless aid last week, on top of the record-high of nearly 17 million who filed in the previous three weeks.

Economists now project a record-shattering 40 percent annual decline in U.S. economic output for the April-June quarter. While growth is expected to rebound in the second half of the year, economists at JPMorgan Chase have forecast that the U.S. economy will still shrink 7 percent for 2020 as a whole.

The slowdown will be global. The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday predicted that the world economy would shrink 3 percent this year, the worst outcome since the Great Depression.

That is hammering oil prices, threatening the solvency of many oil drillers and putting many of their employees out of work. Global demand for oil will fall this year by the most ever due to economic lockdowns around the world, the International Energy Agency said Wednesday. Demand will drop an estimated 9.3 million barrels a day, which is equivalent to a decade’s worth of growth.

In the U.S., consumer spending drives more than two-thirds of the economy and was one of the main pillars of support before the virus. Business investment in new plants and equipment had already pulled back in the face of the U.S.-China trade war and falling oil prices.

On Wednesday, the government said U.S. retail sales plummeted 8.7 percent in March, an unprecedented decline, as the outbreak brought most commerce to a halt.

The deterioration of sales far outpaced the previous record decline of 3.9 percent that took place during the depths of the Great Recession in November 2008. Auto sales dropped 25.6 percent, while clothing store sales collapsed, sliding 50.5 percent. Restaurants and bars reported a nearly 27 percent fall in revenue.

Spending may be falling at an even faster pace than the retail sales figures suggest. Wednesday’s report did not include spending on hotel stays, airline tickets or movie theaters.

Manufacturing output dropped 6.3 percent last month, led by plunging production at auto factories that have shut down. Output dropped 3.9 percent at utilities and 2 percent at mines as oil and gas drilling plunged.

And builder confidence in the market for new single-family homes has fallen off a cliff, according to an index released Wednesday by the National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo. Their monthly housing market index plunged 42 points in April to a reading of 30, the largest single monthly change in the history of the index.