The White House touted two new measures of America’s economic health that offered some good signs and some causes for warning, as Democrats brace for two more critical reports ahead of Election Day.
“Our economy is strong over the most recent quarter,” said Lael Brainard, the director of President Joe Biden’s National Economic Council, on a call with reporters Wednesday morning as she touted GDP growth.
She also noted that “just yesterday, we saw the biggest jump in consumer confidence since March 2021.”
Brainard was quick to emphasize the positive and argue that any concerns are overblown, citing “strong business investment and resilient consumers” and attributing the strength in part to bills Biden signed into law in recent years.
The comments came after the news Wednesday morning that the US economy grew at a slightly less rapid pace than economists had expected in the third quarter but still showed a robust annualized growth rate of 2.8% in the third quarter US gross domestic product (GDP).
Economists surveyed by Bloomberg before the release had expected a 2.9% rate after the 3% growth seen in the second quarter.
“Today’s GDP report shows how far we’ve come since I took office,” Joe Biden emphasized in his own statement Wednesday morning.
The White House touted new data showing consumer confidence rebounding in October, but even the release of that information this week came with a warning.
The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index rose to 108.7 “but still did not break free of the narrow range that has prevailed over the past two years,” noted Dana Peterson, the board’s chief economist.
Other economic indicators due in the coming days could also be mixed.
The October jobs report due to be released on Friday morning could be unpredictable due to Hurricanes Helene and Milton and a short port strike that are all expected to impact the numbers.
“We anticipate it will be a noisy report,” a White House official added on Wednesday of that Friday indicator. “We don’t anticipate that this will in any way impact the underlying trend,” this official added.
And on Thursday the closely watched Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index will be released. That is the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of prices and will be the last measure on that top of mind price issue before voting ends.
Other independent economists tended to echo the overall White House point that Tuesday’s GDP showed a steady US economy, which is politically important for the campaign of Kamala Harris ahead of Election Day on Nov. 5.