Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel in a Thursday tweet blasted President Joe Biden over the lower-than-expected economic growth in the third quarter and accused him of having “squandered the recovery he inherited” from former President Donald Trump.
“Earlier this year, economists expected Q3 economic growth above 7%,” she wrote. “By yesterday, they had downgraded expectations to 2.7%. Today, we learned the economy grew by only 2%. Biden has squandered the recovery he inherited.”
The Associated Press says the U.S. economy was hampered by rising COVID-19 cases and persistent supply shortages as it slowed to a 2% annual rate in the July-September period.
The figures marked the weakest quarterly growth since the recovery from the pandemic recession began last year.
The Commerce Department estimated that the nation’s gross domestic product — its total output of goods and services — declined from the 6% plus annual growth rates of each of the previous two quarters, the AP noted.
“The Delta wave of the pandemic did a lot of damage — it caused consumer to turn more cautious,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “The virus surge scrambled global supply chains and disrupted production in a lot of industries and also created havoc in the job market.”
But with COVID-19 cases on the decline and vaccination rates up, more people are going outside to spend money. Now, some economists believe the GDP will tick up to a rate of 6% or better in the next quarter.
