The US economy grows 7.4% in the third quarter



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D.The US economy picked up ground in the summer quarter following the collapse of the krona in the spring. Gross domestic product (GDP) rose from July to September for the year at a record rate of 33.1%, as announced Thursday by the Washington Department of Commerce, just days before the US presidential election. Experts had only expected a 31.0% increase, after a 31.4% decline in the spring. Converted to the usual approach in Europe, this would correspond to an increase of around 7.4% compared to the previous quarter. However, compared to the third quarter of 2019, economic output decreased by 2.9%.

Consumption proved to be the engine of the summer recovery: it grew by 40.7 per cent annually, after a decline of 33.2 per cent in the spring due to contact restrictions and rising unemployment. Exports and investments also increased significantly in the summer.

A few days before the presidential elections, however, there are no signs of a radical recovery in the labor market. A total of 751,000 Americans filed their first state unemployment benefit last week, less than the previous week, the Washington Department of Labor announced Thursday. Economists interviewed by the Reuters news agency expected a total of 775,000.

Despite the decline, the number of requests for government support remains very high by American standards: the most significant four-week average was 788,000. In the wake of the corona pandemic, more than 22 million jobs have been lost, of which only a good half have been created so far.

Although there were signs of economic improvement in the summer, fears of another setback for the economy in view of the corona contagion resurfaced. This has recently hit Wall Street as well. US President Donald Trump is running for re-election on Tuesday. It has recently fallen behind its Democratic competitor Joe Biden in the polls.

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