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| San Diego building inspector Michael Schwartz (l.) discusses building plans with contractor Oscar Afshari. This is one of
the first homes being built to replace ones lost in last fall's wildfires. Lenny Ignelzi/AP |
U.S. economy still ticking, just barely
GDP rose by only 0.6 percent last quarter, the slowest rate in one year.
By Ron Scherer | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the January 31, 2008 edition
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New York - The US economy is losing its momentum but is stubbornly refusing to drift into a recession.
Instead, it appears that consumer purchases of appliances such as flat-screen TVs, a modest increase in state and local spending, and continued strength in the construction of commercial buildings have kept the economy on the plus side.
Housing, however, remains a major drag on economic growth. And businesses are continuing to let inventories run down.
"I would say the economy is hanging by a thread, but I think the thread will hold," says Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh.
A measure of how close the economy is to dropping into negative territory came on Wednesday, when the Commerce Department, in a preliminary estimate, said the gross domestic product rose by a 0.6 percent rate in the last quarter of 2007. This was the lowest rate of growth since the first quarter of last year. In the ensuing year, the banking system wrote off billions of dollars in bad debt, housing prices fell by more than 7 percent, and consumers became more cautious, especially as energy prices soared. For 2007 overall, the Commerce Department estimated that GDP rose 2.2 percent.
Keeping the economy out of a recession is now one of the major tasks facing policymakers. Congress is racing to enact a stimulus package to help the economy late this spring or early summer. The Federal Reserve has reduced interest rates by 2-1/4 percentage points since the middle of September. That includes a half-point rate reduction announced Wednesday afternoon.
Even though the GDP report shows a weaker economy, on Wednesday, economists were surprised to see an early indication that the jobs market may have bounced back in January. A national employment report from ADP Employer Services found that jobs increased by 130,000 this month. On Friday, the Labor Department will issue its jobs report, which economists think will show a gain of closer to 110,000 jobs.
"If the ADP numbers are confirmed on Friday, it would indicate the economy has been weakened by housing but not knocked out," says Mr. Hoffman. "It would be counter to recession discussions."
Even though housing continues to drag down the economy, some economists are beginning to sense that activity on new houses may start to improve this year.
"You get anecdotal reports of vulture real estate funds buying up properties," says economist Bob Gay of Fenwick Advisers in Rye, N.Y. "I heard a guy talking about some land in New Jersey he had bought, and he said, 'I stole the property,' " says Mr. Gay. "I think the steepness of the housing decline will bottom out, and from here on forward it will be a more gradual decline."
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