On the program today, what we can learn about where this economy might be going by looking

where it's been.

From American public media, this is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle.

Rizz, all it is Thursday, today, April the 9th.

It is always to have you along, everybody.

The news of the American economy comes to us today in the form of six simple letters, G, D, and P, and P, C, and E.

In layman's terms, that's gross domestic product and personal consumption expenditures,

key measures of economic growth and price growth, inflation, that is.

And I am sorry to have to tell you that the indicator arrows are kind of going the wrong way.

Catherine Ann Edwards is a labor economist, also the host of the Optimist Economy podcast.

Catherine Ann, welcome back to the program.

It's good to have you on.

Thank you again for having me.

All right, so let's take it in order.

GDP, we learned this morning in the fourth quarter of last year for economic growth,

one half of one percent annualized.

Discuss. What do you make of that?

It reflects primarily the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, which shaped a considerable amount of growth off of our economy. Do I detect you not being as concerned, perhaps, as others might be?

It comes on the heels of a lot of bad news.

2025 was the weakest year of job growth outside of a recession that we've seen this century.

We shed jobs in four of the months of that year.

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