The US economy grew by 0.78 percent in the final quarter of 2010 pushing annualized growth to 3.2 percent. The increase was attributed to a 4.4 percent increase in consumer spending combined with a decrease in imports.
The Commerce Department also noted that wages and benefits rose by 2 percent for the year, but this is the second slowest rate of wage growth since records were first kept in the early 1980s. While the increase in consumer spending is positive, it remains too little to address the unemployment problem.
“Unfortunately we still need to see much stronger growth to begin to really make a dent in the unemployment rate,” said Ryan Sweet at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
“Right now we are just barely creating enough jobs to stabilise the unemployment rate.”
Source: BBC News
