Elliot Eisenberg , Ph . D . is a nationally acclaimed economist and public speaker specializing in making economics fun , relevant

and educational .

Elliot Eisenberg Economic & Policy Blog

GDP Growth The U . S . economy grew by an unexpectedly strong 3.3 % in 23Q4 , and growth for the year was 3.1 %, well above expectations and the dismal 0.7 % in 2022 . Credit belongs to consumers who were unrelenting in their spending , charging , borrowing , and buying-now-paying-later . The other major growth driver was government spending . As for 2024 , government spending will grow very little and consumer spending will likely slow , leading to weaker GDP growth .

Dwelling Downer December existing housing sales slid to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 3.87 million , the lowest level since 8 / 10 and the end of the second round of ill-fated congressionally enacted first-time homebuyer incentives . Excluding that , 12 / 23 was the worst month since late 2008 . 2023 sales were 4.09 million , the lowest since 1995 , down from 5.03 million in 2022 , and 6.12 million in 2021 . 12 / 23 is likely thi

Debt Dollars For pre-Covid year ending 2 / 20 , interest payments totaled $ 550 billion and the average interest rate on all outstanding U . S . Treasuries was 2.4 %. Interest payments and the average interest rate paid both

bottomed out for the year ending 1 / 22 at $ 320 billion and 1.55 %. For CY2023 , interest payments were $ 750 billion and the average rate was 3.1 %. The budget deficit has been disturbingly high on a regular basis since CY2016 .

Economic Expectations In 10 / 22 , 63 % of economists thought there would be a recession within 12 months . In 1 / 23 , the percentage fell to 61 %, where it remained in 4 / 23 . In 7 / 23 , it fell to 54 %, and in 10 / 23 it declined to 48 %, sub-50 %! It ’ s now 39 %. While that ’ s good news , contain your enthusiasm . In 12 / 07 , a month before the Housing Bust began , just 38 % expected a recession during the next year .

Promotion Prospects For office workers , 5.6 % of full-time and hybrid workers received a promotion in 2023 , compared to 3.9 % for fully remote employees , with no difference in promotion rates between hybrid and full-time . Relatedly , female software engineers at Fortune 500 firms who worked in the same building as their teammates received 40 % more feedback on their code than engineers who didn ’ t share offices . The gap was 18 % for remote male engineers .

Sizable Shrink Pre-Covid , shrink ( a fancy word for retail store theft ) was about $ 50 billion / year and 1.4 % of retail sales . In 2021 , shrink rose to $ 94 billion but declined to 1.4 % of retail sales with less in-person shopping . Since then , it ’ s steadily risen . In 2022 , it was $ 112 billion and 1.6 % of sales , and in 2023 shrink totaled $ 142 billion and 2 % of sales , the highest percentage since at least 2015 .

Coincident Contraction During November , 20 states experienced coincident economic growth with most of the remainder contracting , a few were flat . Since 1979 , every time fewer than 23 states were expanding there ’ s been a recession . Worse , the number of growing states has been deteriorating for six straight months . The closest calls , in 1992 twenty-five states were expanding and in early 2003 twentythree states were growing , and both times a recession was avoided .

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