Business economists less optimistic about next year's growth

Business economists less optimistic about next year's growth

SeattlePI.com

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's business economists are slightly less optimistic about growth prospects over the next year, noting a number of threats ranging from higher-than-expected inflation to lingering disruptions from COVID-19 and snarled supply chains.

The National Association for Business Economics released a new report Monday that found 66% of NABE members responding to a survey expect the economy to grow by 3% to 5.9% over the next year while 28% were less optimistic, pegging growth over the next year at a far slower 0.1% to 2.9%.

That result represented a downgrade from the previous survey in July which had found an identical 66% who believed growth would be 3% to 5.9% but 20% of those surveyed expected growth to come in at an even stronger 6% to 8.9%. In the new survey, no NABE member saw growth higher than the 3% to 5.9% range over the next year.

The NABE forecast for GDP over the next year is generally in line with the expectations of many private forecasting firms.

The government on Thursday will release its first look at economic growth, as measured by the gross domestic product, for the July-September quarter. Economists are forecasting GDP grew at an annual rate of around 3% in the third quarter, a marked slowdown from growth rates of 6.1% in the first quarter and 6.7% in the second quarter.

The slowdown has been attributed to a surge in cases from the delta variant over the summer and supply chain problems which disrupted manufacturing output in many sectors, especially auto production and helped send consumer prices rising at the fastest pace in 13 years.

The NABE survey found 33% of those responding saw increased cost pressures as the biggest risk to their company's outlook followed closely by 28% of NABE survey respondents who saw the...

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