What’s going on with the US economy?
Image: UPenn Wharton
Q3 is over and in the books. Let’s take a look at how various aspects of the US economy are doing as we head into the final quarter of the year.
💼 Jobs: Weekly unemployment claims, a proxy for layoffs, fell below 200,000 last week for the first time since April. There are almost 2 jobs available for every unemployed worker, near an all-time high. (There were always more unemployed people than available jobs prior to the pandemic.)
📉 Stocks: Major US indexes posted three consecutive quarters of declines, the first such instance since 2009. September was the worst-performing month for US stocks since March 2020. (Dow: -8.8% | S&P: -9.3% | Nasdaq: -10.5%)
💰 GDP: The US economy shrank by 0.6% during the second quarter of the year, per the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ latest estimate published last Thursday. It marked the second straight quarter of GDP decline, aka the common definition of a recession – though the US gov’t uses a different method.
📈 Inflation: The Consumer Price Index, America’s most widely-used measure of inflation, rose 8.3% in August from the same month a year ago. That’s down from 8.5% in July and 9.1% in June, which was the highest rate in 40 years.
- Late last month, the Federal Reserve announced its third consecutive rate hike of 0.75% in a bid to tame inflation. Before June, the Fed hadn’t raised rates by that much at a single time since 1994.
💵🌏 The dollar: America’s currency has risen 17% so far this year against a group of other major global currencies, per IMF data. If that number holds (or increases) in Q4, it would mark the dollar’s best yearly percentage gain in history, Reuters reports.
📊 Flash poll: All things considered (employment situation, stocks, inflation, etc.), do you feel better or worse off financially than you were a year ago?
See a 360° view of what the media is saying →
Sprinkles from the Left
- Some commentators argue that the Fed is doing all it can do to slow inflation at the moment – what’s truly needed are supply-side changes like more workers, more goods and more services, which are beyond the Fed’s purview.
- Others contend that America may technically be in a recession right now, but things are still nowhere near as bad as previous market downturns like the Great Recession of 2007-09.
- “The Vibes in the Economy Are … Weird. Really Weird.” –Kyla Scanlon, NY Times
- “It’s not time to panic — yet — about the nation’s economic woes” –Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Board
- “The Unease You Feel Is the Fed Pushing Into a Recession” –John Authers, Bloomberg
Sprinkles from the Right
- Some commentators argue that the federal reserve should keep aggressively raising interest rates in the near future despite the economic harm it may do to the economy, since high inflation poses a much larger existential threat.
- Others contend that Americans need to get used to the idea of high unemployment in the coming months and years, as it may be the only way the Fed can slow down rampant inflation.
- “The Moral Case for Higher Interest Rates” –Ramesh Ponnuru, American Enterprise Institute/National Review
- “Inflation and the Scariest Economics Paper of 2022” –Jason Furman, WSJ
- “Biden’s economy: Rising inflation and interest rates spell double trouble” –Washington Times Editorial Board
Share this!
Recent Discussion stories
Discussion
| September 30, 2022Thursday is the new Friday
💼📅 A majority of the companies participating in one of the largest 4-day workweek pilot programs in history say they’ve experienced no loss in productivity so far, per a survey published last week.
Discussion
| September 28, 2022Student loan forgiveness faces its first major legal challenge
🎓⚖️ A public interest lawyer in Indiana filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Education yesterday in an effort to block its student loan forgiveness plan, marking the policy’s first major legal challenge.
Discussion
| September 26, 2022How should tech platforms handle political content?
📧📱 Gmail users may start seeing more political emails in their inboxes soon, thanks to a new pilot program that aims to keep political campaigns out of the spam folder.
But more broadly, how should tech platforms handle political content? Dive deeper + see the 360° view.
You've made it this far...
Let's make our relationship official, no 💍 or elaborate proposal required. Learn and stay entertained, for free.👇
All of our news is 100% free and you can unsubscribe anytime; the quiz takes ~10 seconds to complete