The Soft Landing Is Global, but It’s Cushiest in America
www.nytimes.com
Economies all over the world are lowering inflation while avoiding serious recession — but growth in the United States stands out.

The world is starting 2024 on an optimistic economic note, as inflation fades globally and growth remains more resilient than many forecasters had expected. Yet one country stands out for its surprising strength: the United States.

After a sharp pop in prices rocked the world in 2021 and 2022 — fueled by supply chain breakdowns tied to the pandemic, then oil and food price spikes related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — many nations are now watching inflation recede. And that is happening without the painful recessions that many economists had expected as central banks raised interest rates to bring inflation under control.

…

Part of the reason that economic growth has been so surprisingly strong in the United States is simple: The American government has continued to spend a lot of money.

Government expenditures as a share of overall output hovered around 35 percent in America in the years leading up to the pandemic, based on I.M.F. data. But in 2020 and 2021, they jumped above 40 percent as the government responded to the coronavirus with about $5 trillion in relief and stimulus to people, businesses, institutions, and state and local governments.

Both states and households have only slowly spent down the savings they amassed during those pandemic years, so the money has continued to trickle through the economy like a slow-release booster shot. On top of that, government spending has remained elevated as the Biden administration has begun to make sweeping infrastructure and climate investments.

Non-paywall link

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    42·
    9 months ago

    But according to American Community Survey (ACS) data from the Census Bureau, 522,752 US households lacked complete plumbing access in 2021. Of these households, 347,943 didn’t have a bath or a shower, 419,971 lacked hot or cold running water, and 246,884 had neither.

    https://usafacts.org/articles/us-households-with-plumbing-poverty/

    But sure. Homes in colder parts of the U.S. can keep heated. They might have to use a wood stove and keep themselves in the one room the wood stove heats, but they can keep it heated.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        21·
        9 months ago

        Please explain exactly how showing you the results of a census that explains that half a million people in America do not, in fact, have running water make me delusional?

        Are you claiming I created the website I linked you to? Because that would be delusional.

        • Aux@lemmy.world
          12·
          9 months ago

          First of all, half a million is a tiny proportion of US. It’s not even one city worth. Second, who are these people and where do they live? Are they your regular drug junkies who forfeited life in a modern society for their drug of choice? Or maybe they’re scientists living in a remote location? In any case these are not part of the general public and they are a very tiny proportion.

          This is an extremely different situation when compared to India, for example. Where 91 million people don’t have access to drinkable water. That’s 91 million. And not just running water at home - any fresh drinkable water at all! And 746 million people don’t have access to sanitation facilities at home. Read: they don’t have a toilet and a bathroom. That’s double the US population! And pretty much half of Indian.

          These oh so poor half a mil Americans… The US economy must be doing so bad!

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
            31·
            9 months ago

            I’m sorry… are you suggesting that someone deserves to not have running water if they use drugs? Should they also not deserve to have food? Should they just starve to death?