January 30, 2020

Chart of the Day: GDP Growth Ends 2019 on Ho-Hum Note

In the final quarter of 2019, real GDP grew 2.1 percent:

This is OK. It’s not great, but it’s OK, especially in the 128th month of an economic expansion. The fourth quarter results mean that we ended the year with annual growth of 2.3 percent:

Again, this is an OK number, but nothing to write home about. US economic growth has been remarkably steady since the end of the Great Recession, never breaking out of a range of 1.5-3.0 percent.

And for you political types who demand to know what this means for the election, it probably means nothing. Economic growth is good enough that it doesn’t provide Donald Trump with any big problems, but it’s low enough that he’s still vulnerable. Altogether, economic growth is probably a wash for the 2020 campaign.

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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