America’s economy: Better than it looks

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Watch out

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America’s economy

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America’s disappointing economy is more robust than it first appears. But higher interest rates are on the horizon, and could bring unexpected risks

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ONE of the ways in which America’s economy leads the world has been, of late, an unrivalled capacity for sending mixed messages. The past six months provide a case in point. The year opened with things looking pretty good: strong growth in late 2014 had led the IMF to project that GDP would rise by 3.1% in 2015; the Congressional Budget Office, America’s fiscal watchdog, expected a 3.4% expansion. In March and April, though, bad news built up, and in May official numbers confirmed that tumbling investment and exports meant that over the first quarter GDP had actually been falling at an annualised rate of 0.7%.
Then the good news came back. In early June data from the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) showed hourly pay rising at …<div class="og_rss_groups"></div>
Source: The Economy