While the average growth rate of the US economy is 2-3% per year, I feel we have experienced some relatively stressful rates. The growth rate in 2018 was up 2.9% following an increase of 2.3% in 2019 with a drop of 3.5% in 2020. With a significant rise of 5.7% in 2021, we are currently down 0.9% as of now. The inflation rate in 2018 was at 2.1%, climbed to 2.2% in 2019 and dropped to 1.7% in 2020. In 2021 we saw an increase to 3.6 leading to a 6% beginning of 2022 then 6.5% in March slowly dropping to 6.3 as of August. Unemployment was at 3.9% equaling 6.4 million in 2018 which fell to 3.6% in 2019 and rapidly increased to 6.7% equaling 11 million in 2020. There was a substantial decrease in 2021 to 3.9% with a further drop to 3.5% as of this year. In comparison to the date, you can see the correlation of the pandemic in 2020. You can see the business cycle going from recession to recovery from the data collection. However, even though the next cycle would be into expansion, are we heading there? While inflation is still very high at over 8%, this will create less spending. With less spending, the demand decreases causing a negative AD shock shifting the curve to the left away from the potential GDP. Cyclical unemployment increases when the output falls substantially below the potential GDP. With high interest rates, high unemployment and low GDP growth rate, does this point more towards a recession?

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