US Economy Shows Strength Entering 2022, but Pandemic Clouds Future – By Rob Garver (VOA News) / January 9, 2022
WASHINGTON — At the start of 2022 most measures show the U.S. economy is booming, with an unemployment rate that is approaching record lows and a demand for goods that has imports from the rest of the world surging.
On Friday, the Labor Department announced that the unemployment rate had fallen to 3.9% in December, even as the economy produced a smaller-than-expected increase of 199,000 new jobs. The report came a day after the Commerce Department announced that U.S. imports in November had increased by 4.6% over the previous month to $304.4 billion.
The rising level of imports contributed to a trade deficit of $80.2 billion for the month, which is close to the record high of $81.4 billion set in September. While a large trade deficit is seen as a negative by many, particularly former President Donald Trump, who went to great lengths to close the gap between imports and exports, economists say it points to a U.S. economy that is leading the global recovery from the pandemic-induced recession.
“When we do better than everybody else, we get a bigger trade deficit,” said economist Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
