US economic growth beats expectations in final snapshot of Biden presidency

High prices may have cost Democrats the election, but the U.S. economy has powered through 2024 with better-than-expected growth. And now President-elect Donald Trump is poised to inherit it.

GDP rose at a 3.1 percent annualized pace in the third quarter of the year, according to Commerce Department data released Thursday, after growing at a 3 percent rate in the second quarter — a rapid clip for an economy of the U.S.’s size. That growth, fed by steady consumer spending, comes alongside a still-low unemployment rate of 4.2 percent and much-improved inflation, which has fallen below 3 percent.

It’s the final big-picture snapshot of the economy that President Joe Biden is leaving to his successor.

“I feel very good about where the economy is,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told reporters Wednesday. “I expect another good year next year.”

Still, the surging economy could also make it harder for the Fed to get inflation all the way back down to its 2 percent target. The healthy GDP numbers have come alongside strong productivity data — more economic activity doesn’t have to put upward pressure on prices if the economy can produce enough to keep up — but also stalled progress on inflation.

Central bank officials projected inflation would remain similarly stubborn next year, though Powell said he still thinks inflation is trending down.