Washington, March 30 (FN Agency) US Gross Domestic Product grew by 6.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday in its final estimate for the quarter which came in lower than its previous reading of 7 per cent. “Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 6.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2021,” the Bureau of Economic Analysis, a unit within the Commerce Department, said in a news release. The department issues three GDP readings altogether for each quarter.
Economists surveyed by US media had projected a 7.1 per cent reading for the third estimate on the quarter, due to the faster-than-expected growth in inflation since the first estimate. “While it’s a slight miss, it’s a reminder that growth was sizzling coming into the year,” economist Adam Button said in a post on the ForexLive forum. After a 3.5 per cent contraction in 2020 GDP forced by the coronavirus crisis, the US economy grew by 5.7 per cent for all of 2021 — the biggest calendar-year growth since 1984. But inflation has been expanding faster, growing by 5.8 per cent in the year to December, its most since 1982, according to the Consumer Price Index published by the Commerce Department. In February, the annual expansion of the CPI reached 7.9 per cent, the fastest since 1981.