August's industrial production and inflation-adjusted retail sales reports today show that the US economy is growing, but just barely. The former was down a bit, while the latter was up a bit (charts below). Both are included in the Coincident Economic Indicators.
Consumers went on a spending spree after the lockdown recession in early 2020. They spent mostly on goods because many services were still not open for business. This year, they've pivoted toward spending more on services and less on goods, especially housing-related ones.
The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tracking model is currently showing that Q3's real GDP is running at only 0.5% (saar), down from the previous 1.3%. According to the model. consumer spending growth in real GDP dropped from 1.7% to 0.4%, while gross private domestic investment growth fell from -6.1% to -6.4%.
