A deluge of economic data ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday highlights how the pandemic economy is still very much in flux.
Stripping out food and energy costs, which tend to be more volatile, prices rose 4.1% over the period, the most since January 1991.
Even so the economy grew at a much weaker pace in the third quarter than in the three months before, when the pace of growth was 6.7%. Over the summer, the growing supply chain challenges, along with worries about the rapidly spreading Delta variant of the coronavirus weighed on the recovery.
Growth may have slowed over the summer, “but there is lots to give thanks for with a growth boom expected in the final quarter of the year,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS LLC.
Economists expect that abating Delta worries, along with a faster pace of recovery in the labor market and rising wages, will make for a strong end to the year.
Spending into the holiday season
Even though prices are high, Americans can afford to spend their hard earned cash. At least for now. Concerns are brewing that inflation could rise to a level that will keep people from spending, which would be bad news for the recovery.
“Consumers expressed less optimism in the November 2021 survey than any other time in the past decade about prospects for their own finances as well as for the overall economy,” and that was down to the high inflation, said Richard Curtin, chief economist of the Survey of Consumers, on Wednesday.
“Complaints about falling living standards doubled in the past six months and quintupled in the past year,” he added.
Survey participants expect their incomes to decline when adjusted for inflation, but for the…
Read More: A key measure of inflation rose to a 31-year high in October