After a year in which a pandemic and politics posed challenges unlike the U.S. has seen in generations, the economy closed 2020 in fairly good shape.
Gross domestic product, or the sum of all goods and services produced, increased at a 4 percent pace in the fourth quarter, slightly below the 4.3 percent expectation from economists surveyed by Dow Jones. Thursday’s report was the Commerce Department’s initial estimate of growth for the quarter.
Also Thursday, the Labor Department reported that first-time claims for jobless benefits totaled 847,000 last week, less than the 875,000 expected by economists polled by Dow Jones
In the Commerce report, the annualized pace closed out a 2020 that saw GDP overall decline 3.5 percent for the full year and by 2.5 percent from the fourth quarter of 2019. The economy fell into recession in February, a month before the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic. The 3.5 percent decline is the worst year for the U.S. since at least the end of World War II.
To read the full story from Jeff Cox at CNBC.com, click here.
