Back on October 25, I wrote, “Is the U.S. Economy Headed toward a Recession?”
Apparently not! “Gross domestic product, the sum of all goods and services produced during the October-through-December period, increased at a 6.9 percent annualized pace, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.” For an economy dealing with supply chain issues, a labor shortage, inflation, and the start of the Omicron wave, that is a really good number.
But a good GDP number doesn’t necessarily mean Americans are feeling good about the economy. In December, Gallup found just 17 percent of Americans rating economic conditions as good, 40 percent saying only fair, and 42 percent saying the economy was poor – the worst numbers since the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the economy in spring 2020. And a more recent Gallup survey found “49 percent of Americans saying rising prices have caused hardship for their family, including 9 percent who say it has caused ‘severe’ hardship affecting their ability to maintain their current standard of living.”
American workers were really productive last quarter, but that doesn’t mean they’re all that satisfied.