The fourth quarter released high growth results in the U.S. economy, above the forecasts by analysts. The growth was due to inventories being rebuilt. According to a report in Bloomberg, this has been the strongest year since the eighties.

On Thursday, a preliminary estimate by the Commerce Department indicated that the gross domestic product (GDP) expanded at a annualized rate of 6.9 percent, after a 2.3 percent pace in the third quarter. This is the strongest quarterly growth that has taken place in over a year.

The economy has grown to 5.7 percent in 2021 when compared with 2020 after adjusting for inflation. This is the highest growth since 1984. Consumer spending rose to 7.9 percent which is the highest since 1946. The GDP saw an addition of 2.1 percentage points due to service spending while 0.1 percentage points were added as a result of goods.

Other data indicated that after three months, orders for durable goods lessened in December. Goods shipments remained flat. Applications for U.S. state unemployment insurance declined for the first time in four weeks. Record job growth was the reason why the unemployment rate also fell to below four percent.

Despite these positive results, inflation is still a problem and has contributed to a fall in popularity of the Biden administration as it is not the temporary phenomenon that the administration and Fed believed it to be. Policy makers are looking at ways to deal with inflation.

High inflation has taken away the benefits of high growth in jobs as well as the increase in salaries seen across all job sectors. It has also undone the focus from a lot of the good work done by the Biden administration including passing stimulus packages, conducting robust vaccine drives, passing a bipartisan infrastructure bill and more.