Economic indicators are showing a strong economic recovery, boosted by a competent vaccine rollout and President Biden's historic American Recovery Plan:
The economy picked up speed last quarter, shaking off some of the lingering effects of the pandemic as consumer spending grew, bolstered by government stimulus checks and an easing of restrictions in many parts of the country.
The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the economy expanded 1.6 percent in the first three months of 2021, compared with 1.1 percent in the final quarter last year.
On an annualized basis, the first-quarter growth rate was 6.4 percent.
“We’re running on all cylinders in terms of economic activity,” said Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West in San Francisco. “People are anxious to get out and return to their normal lives, and there’s pent-up demand.”
“It doesn’t hurt that the stock market is at a record high and the housing market is strong,” he added. “Consumers have built up roughly $2 trillion in excess savings.”
Overall economic activity should return to prepandemic levels in the current quarter, Mr. Anderson said, while cautioning that it will take until late 2022 for employment to regain the ground it lost as a result of the pandemic. [snip]
Tom Gimbel, chief executive of LaSalle Network, a recruiting and staffing firm in Chicago, said: “It’s the best job market I’ve seen in 25 years. We have 50 percent more openings now than we did pre-Covid.”
Hiring is stronger for junior to midlevel positions, he said, with strong demand for professionals in accounting, financing, marketing and sales, among other areas. “Companies are building up their back-office support and supply chains,” he said. “I think we’re good for at least 18 months to two years.”
If Democrats can keep the momentum by passing the wildly popular American Jobs Plan (and it would be sheer political malpractice not to), a new era of American prosperity centering on building better from the ground up and the middle out, as the President has often put it, is on the near horizon. That would be the best demonstration of what competent, compassionate progressive government can achieve than anything else.
