On July 22, 2012, Jeffry Bartash writes in The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch section:
All evidence points to another slowdown in the U.S. economy and the government is expected to make it official on Friday.
The key economic report of the week, gross domestic product, is likely to show growth fizzled in the second quarter. The U.S. probably grew at a tepid 1.3%, down from 1.9% in the first quarter and 3.0% in the last three months of 2011, Economists surveyed by MarketWatch estimate.
That’s bad news for millions of Americans who still cannot find work several years after the last recession officially ended. Such a slow growth rate reflects an economy incapable of adding jobs fast enough to dramatically lower the nation’s 8.2% unemployment rate.
Yet with the second-quarter now in the rearview mirror, the more critical question is whether sluggish growth will persist in the third quarter — July through September. The short answer: probably.
http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-07-22/economy/32781597_1_gas-prices-slow-growth-fiscal-cliff
