Amna: The newest data suggests
the U.S. Economy is slowing
down.
Consumers are still spending and
companies are still hiring and
investing, but not at the same
pace as last year.
The economy continues to define
predictions of imminent
recession.
Paul Solman has our report on
what the numbers tell us and how
that squares with how Americans
feel about it all.
Reporter: The latest gdp
estimate out this morning, lower
than many expected.
>> It grew at a rate of 1.1%.
A measure of either how much we
all produced, how much more this
quarter than last, how much we
all spent or how much we all
earned.
It is all three.
Reporter: 1.1% is lower than it
has been.
Do your colleagues agree this is
bad news, or good news?
>> On one hand it is a little
lower than it has been recently
and expected.
On the other, all the people who
were talking about recessions
are starting to feel
disappointed because the economy
keeps motoring along.
Reporter: So you are looking on
the bright side?
>> There is a lot to like.
The economy has been dominated
by people talking about the
recession and doom and gloom but
looking at the numbers, people
are reducing but the economy
keeps growing.
No matter what, people are out
spending money as if they
believe things are ok.
Gdp is back where the CEO
thought it would be four years
ago.
Unemployment is nearly at a 50
year low.
Wages are growing.
Inflation is higher than it has
been in quite some time but it
is on the way back down and
starting to look like it is more
manageable reporter:.
The biggest problem has been
inflation.
The price of eggs is dropping.
Lumbar -- lumber is down back to
pre-pandemic levels.
Container shipping have prices
from 2019.
America's gdp represents about
25% of the world total, almost
the same -- the same share and
had a 1990 and $100 invested in
the S&P 500 in 1990 would have
grown to about $2300 today.
Invested in an indexed of the
biggest rich world stocks, $500.
But if the economy is so good,
have -- why don't so many
Americans believe it?
A pew poll found 58% of
Americans feel the economy is
worse than it was 50 years ago.
>> Nine consecutive rate hikes
in the last many months and
probably another to come.
Those rate hikes as Powell has
admitted have not fully hit the
system so there is a real chance
that things will go south as we
continue to see the effects of
the rate have -- rate hike.
Reporter: For many, things have
already gone south.
>> We have a cost-of-living
crisis.
Childcare and health care have
put burdens on family budgets
for decades.
Reporter: Wages at the bottom
have been rising.
>> But as a whole they have not
been keeping pace with inflation
and I think at the end of the
day people feel it.
They feel the cost of goods
going up and the cost of
essentials going up.
They are struggling.
Reporter: Which economy does
today's numbers suggest?
>> It depends on who you look
at.
We have problems, but not the
problems other people have.
Years ago, you said the united
States was the best force in the
glue factory.
Is that still true?
>> We think of it as the place
that horses do not have another
great function and up so we
worry somehow the U.S. Is past
its prime and somehow we are not
the economy we once were.
I do not think that is true.
Reporter: But the metaphor is
the American economy will end up
in glue.
>> It's maybe not the Rosie
asked assessment but I am an
economist.
-- Rosiest assessment, but I am
an economist.
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