News released Thursday that the U.S. third quarter GDP growth rate was 7.4%, or a record annualized rate of 33.1%, will not provide President Trump with a bounce in his support as the election nears, according to Ford School Dean Michael Barr and professor Justin Wolfers. They were quoted in an article for Fox Business News.
Barr said, “I don't think the GDP numbers will matter for the election. They are backward-looking, and what they are basically going to tell us is that the economy grew quickly last quarter. But it grew quickly from a devastating and brutal quarter before that.”
Even with the positive numbers, Barr said, “We haven't recovered from the pandemic, and there are still over 11 million unemployed people in the U.S.”
Wolfers added, “The economy in the third quarter will still be far below what it was pre-COVID, so far below that the depth of the recession even after that record growth will still be as a deep as a very deep recession, like the 2008 recession.”
The Fox Business News article can be read here.
