Still slow: U.S. economy grew 1.

6% in 2016

Published on January 27, 2017

http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/27/news/economy/us-gdp-2016/index.html?iid=Lead

During 2016, the U.S economy grew a total of 1.6%. From October to December

however, it grew at an annual rate of 1.9%. This slow growth rate was one of the main reasons

why Donald Trump was elected as president. He hopes to raise the growth to 4% a year, which

is something that has not happened in over 20 years. To reach this goal, he has a plan which

includes cutting corporate and individual taxes, build more roads and bridges and to cut away

regulations. President Trumps plans have created optimism in Americans, causing the stock

market to reach an all time high. Others, however, are not as optimistic about Trumps plans.

The Federal Reserve, for example, predicts that the economy growth will stay around 2%, but it

may change with time. Slowing productivity is one of the main problems that is holding the

economy back. Productivity is at a slower pace than it used to be at which means that Americans

are not producing goods as fast as they were before, which affects wages and growth. Overall,

the economy has been increasing since the recession ended in 2009. The unemployment rate is

now at 4.7% compared to a staggering 10% in 2009. All in all, America has been changing

throughout the past seven years, just very slowly.

I thought that this article was very interesting to read. It taught me a lot about the

economy, what factors affect it, and how it is rated. Also, I thought it was intriguing that Donald

Trump plans to raise the economy almost 2% with his strategy. It will be interesting to see if he

can reach this goal, and if he can, how many years it will take to raise to 4%. To go along with

this, I am interested to see what President Trump changes to try to reach his goal, and how they

affect the economy. I wonder if what he changes to help us now may actually make the economy
worse off in the future. While I was reading, there was one word that I was unfamiliar with,

productivity. Upon further research, I found that productivity was measured by the output per

unit of input. This means that it compares the input as labor and capital to the output as revenues

and gross domestic product. Looking this up helped me better understand the article, and how it

is affecting the economy today.