Third Quarter Economy Slows Drastically

Joe Biden’s economy has received more bad news as the third quarter looks to have slowed significantly.

According to The Washington Free Beacon:

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy grew at its slowest pace in more than a year in the third quarter as COVID-19 infections flared up, further straining global supply chains and causing shortages of goods like automobiles that almost stifled consumer spending.

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Gross domestic product increased at a 2.0% annualized rate last quarter, the Commerce Department said in its advance GDP estimate on Thursday. That was slowest since the second quarter of 2020, when the economy suffered a historic contraction in the wake of stringent mandatory measures to contain the first wave of coronavirus cases.

The economy grew at a 6.7% rate in the second quarter. The Delta variant of the coronavirus worsened labor shortages at factories, mines and ports, gumming up the supply chain. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast GDP rising at a 2.7% rate last quarter.

Strong inflation, fueled by the economy-wide shortages and pandemic relief money from the government over the course of the public health crisis, cut into growth. Ebbing fiscal stimulus and Hurricane Ida, which devastated U.S. offshore energy production in late August, also weighed on the economy.

One of the major factors of the US economy, consumer spending, grew at a 1.6% rate, as compared to 12%. the quarter before.