The United States economy overview: The U.S. economic fundamentals underpinning the property markets are strong. With the harsh winter behind us, many indicators are revving up again and following the accelerating pattern in the latter half of 2013. The March data revealed huge rebounds in vehicle sales, retail sales, manufacturing output and employment gains, and consensus forecasts show that healthy growth is expected to continue for the rest of 2014, with annual GDP growth still expected to reach 3%. The labor markets continue to make significant progress. The U.S. economy has created over 8.2 million jobs in this recovery, 533,000 over the last past three months. By the summer of this year, employment will finally be back to its pre-recession peak. Consumer spending also picked up, boosted by higher house and stock prices and a further decline in household debt relative to disposable income, which raised household net worth above its long-term average. A faster pace of inventory accumulation and strong export growth (particularly in regard to petroleum products) also contributed to sustained activity in the second half of 2013. In the United States, growth in 2013 was higher than expected, and recent data remain consistent with a further pickup in 2014 as improvement in the labor and housing markets continues and the fiscal drag wanes. The U.S. economy is currently as strong as it has ever been in this recovery.
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 03:14:24 +0000
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