Business climate for the 2024 year-end shows a 2.1% economic growth year over year
In Putnam County, October business licenses totaled 49 (36 manufacturing and 13 retail), according to numbers by Putnam County Clerk Wayne Nabors. Compare that to October when the county saw 53 new business listings (22 retail and 31 manufacturing/services).
Nationally, the business climate for the 2024 year-end shows a 2.1% economic growth year over year, according to a report by vangard.com.
“Recent revisions to GDP, gross domestic income, consumer savings, and employment suggest a firmer picture of overall growth and consumer health,” according to the report. “The U.S. economy grew by more than originally thought in the second quarter, with real GDP increasing by an annualized 3%. First quarter growth had been an annualized 1.4%. We continue to foresee growth in 2024 in a range above trend or its noninflationary potential, with full-year growth above 2%.”
The report says the nation’s core inflation number could be 2.8% year over year.
According to the website:
“The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure to guide policymaking, the core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, inched higher in August, to 2.7% year over year from 2.6% in July. We foresee the pace of core PCE rising to 2.8% by year-end because of base effects, or challenging comparisons with year-earlier data.
The Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) could be from 4.25% – 4.5%. The Fed has seen balanced risks to the mandate of ensuring price stability and maximum sustainable employment, according to the report.
“The Fed made a strong start to its easing cycle September 18, reducing its target for the federal funds rate by 50 basis points to a range of 4.75%–5%,” according to the report. “We foresee 25-basis-point rate cuts at Federal Reserve’s November and December meetings and further cuts in 2025 that would bring Federal Reserve’s policy rate toward the neutral rate—the theoretical interest rate that would neither stimulate nor restrict the economy. (Vanguard pegs the neutral rate at a nominal 3.5%.)”
In September, the national unemployment rate improved. In Tennessee, unemployment rate remains near its all-time low and well below the U.S. rate, according to the latest data from the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development (TDLWD). The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.3% in October, an increase of one-10th of a percentage point over the previous month. Despite the uptick, Tennessee’s rate is eight-tenths of a percentage point below the national rate of 4.1%.
Earlier this year, Tennessee recorded a rate of 3%, its lowest ever, three months in a row. The state’s October rate of 3.3% is two-tenths of a percentage point lower than its rate in Oct. 2023. The U.S. rate of 4.1% held steady from the month before and is three-tenths of a percentage point higher than it was in Oct. 2023.
Check out Putnam’s new business listings below.
New-Business-listing-October-2024Image by DilokaStudio on Freepik.
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