Over the past year, the U.S. economy has been making some interesting moves, and it all shows up in the GDP numbers. GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product, and it measures how much stuff the United States produces and sells on an annual basis.

The Last Year:

Over the last year, the U.S. GDP has been growing, but not without a few bumps in the road. According to the latest GDP report, the economy expanded by about 2.3% this past quarter, which is decent but not mind-blowing. This growth was driven by strong consumer spending and businesses ramping up investments. On the other hand, there’s been a slowdown in exports, partly because of global trade issues and a strong dollar making U.S. goods more expensive for other countries.

Looking back at the whole year, the U.S. economy grew by around 2.6%. Much of this growth was fueled by the job market, which has been surprisingly strong. Unemployment is low, and wages are finally starting to rise, which means people have more money to spend. But, at the same time, inflation has been super apparent, making everything from groceries to gas cost more.

The Next Year:

So, what about the future? Economists are predicting that GDP growth might slow down a bit next year. They’re saying we could see growth around 1.8% to 2% mostly due to the fact that the Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates to try to cool down inflation, which makes borrowing money more expensive. That can slow down spending and investments, which are big drivers of GDP. Plus, there’s still a lot of uncertainty out there, like potential global economic slowdowns and ongoing supply chain problems.

An Overall View:

The U.S. economy has been pretty resilient, and there’s hope that inflation will keep easing. If that happens, people could start spending more freely again, giving GDP growth a nice little boost. Also, industries like tech and clean energy are expected to keep growing, which could add some extra fuel to the economic engine. Overall, GDP growth over the last year has been strong, and although next year’s predictions for growth are lower, there is still much good to be found in the strength of the US economy.