The US economy is approaching a steady, if unexciting, cruise speed

摘要

There is growing evidence that the pace of US monthly employment gains is slowing into the 160,000-180,000 range, consistent with an economy that is either at, or rapidly approaching full employment. Meanwhile, after three disappointing quarters, real GDP growth is set to accelerate—the big drag in the second quarter was inventories, which subtracted 1.3 percentage points from real GDP growth. Excluding inventories, final demand rose 2.4%. IHS Markit expects the impact of inventories to be neutral in the third quarter and then positive in the fourth quarter and throughout 2017. This means that the growth rates of both real GDP and final demand will be 3.0% in the third quarter and then average 2.4% in both 2017 and 2018.