At a rate of 2.9% American economy in the fourth quarter of 2022, slightly beating the Dow Jones poll’s median estimate of 2.8% growth. This is a slight slowdown in growth compared to 3.2%, which was the growth rate in the third quarter of last year.

Consumer spending, which makes up about 68% of GDP, rose 2.1% in the latest quarter from 2.3% in the previous period. Speaking to the New York Times, Michael Gapin, an economist at Bank of America, stressed that “the economy is still growing more than we thought, and most of that growth is in households.”

Overall, for 2022, US GDP grew by 1%, which is a significant slowdown compared to 5.7% recorded in 2021.

The Fed’s closely watched Personal Consumption Spending Index rose 3.2% as expected, but dropped significantly from 3.8% in the third quarter. Excluding food and energy, the index strengthened to 3.9% from 4.7% earlier. It’s worth noting that in another report released today, the job market appears to remain “tight”. Specifically, jobless claims fell to 186,000 last week, the lowest level since April 2022, well below economists’ estimate in a Dow Jones survey. In the first half of last year, the US economy contracted, which raised serious concerns about the possibility of slipping into recession. After all, for all of 2022, US GDP grew by 1%, a significant slowdown from the 5.7% growth it posted in 2021. Over the past year, the wild growth seen in 2021 has stalled but has continued to show resilience despite the shocks. due to the war in Europe, high inflation worldwide and a series of aggressive interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. As Jay Bryson, economist at Wells Fargo, notes, “2020 was the year of the pandemic, 2021 was the year of recovery from the pandemic, and 2022 was the year of transition.” After all, according to economists of the American network CNBC, despite the relatively good performance of the last quarter, most economists assess the chances of a recession in 2023 as high.