Most economists predict business as usual, with only minor disruptions.
Y2K's biggest effect on the economy may actually be the money spent preparing for it. At the worst, the Comptroller's office estimates an economic slowdown caused by serious Y2K disruptions would result in the creation of 40,000 fewer jobs between 1999 and 2001. However, programmers soon learned it was easier to patch old programs with a few new lines of code than to replace an entire program. As a result, many of the most powerful computers and common programs still use the two-digit date system. Most computers and software programs created in the late 1990s are not vulnerable to the glitch, although many of the computers and programs they interact with are.