Fastest Quarterly Growth In Four Years Reached By US Economy In Q2


07/29/2018



The commerce department of United States announced that the country had notched an annual rate of 4.1 per cent in the second quarter of 2018 which is the fastest in the last four years
 
This rate of growth would be a booster for the Trump Administration that launched a $1.5tn tax cuts during the beginning of the year and had claimed that the amount of would be recovered through economic growth.
 
Before the announcement of the growth rates, a teaser about the possible good news was issued by Donald Trump. Trump told a rally in Illinois: “Somebody actually predicted today 5.3[% growth]. I don’t think that’s going to happen ... if it has a four in front of it, we’re happy”, thereby breaking away from a tradition among president of not commenting on market sensitive government releases before they are actually made public.
 
The figures were called “amazing” by Trump at a press conference on Friday. “These numbers are very sustainable, this isn’t a one-time shot,” he said. The next report expected to come from the commerce department in October, sometime before the forthcoming midterm elections would be “outstanding”, he said.
 
“We’ve accomplished an economic turnaround of historic proportions,” he said. “Once again we are the economic envy of the entire world.”
 
But according to economists, this spurt in growth could be unsustainable and that there is proof that the advantages of the mini-economic boom have primarily been accorded to the wealthiest Americans in a disproportionate manner.
 
It was back in 2014 when the US economy had grown at a comparable rate of 5,2 per cent in the third quarter of that year. 
 
Rising consumer spending, exports and business investment had driven the economic growth in the second quarter, showed data from the commerce department. There was a growth of 4 per cent in the consumer spending in the last quarter compared to just 0.5 per cent in the January to March period. Growth in business investment was 7.3 per cent.
 
It might b difficult for the economy to maintain the rate of growth because in the whole of 2017 the economy grew 2.3 per cent and over the last 14 years, the growth in GDP has not crossed the 3 per cent mark. There was a growth of just 2.2 per cent at the annual rate in the gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter of the year which means that the average for the six months is 3.1 per cent.
 
The second quarter now occupies a strategic position – having come soon after the tax cuts by trump but before the impact of the tariffs that rattled global trade. 
 
(Source:www.theguardian.com)