Good morning. I'm Paige Winfield Cunningham from the Washington Post and this is the Daily

202 for Friday, January 29th.

In today's news, DC officials slam a proposal to erect permanent fencing around the U.S. Capitol.

And a coronavirus variant first seen in South Africa is identified in South Carolina.

But first, here's the big idea.

The U.S. economy shrank by 3.5% in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic

ravaged factories, businesses, and households pushing U.S. economic growth to a

low not seen since the nation wound down wartime spending in

1946. Overall the economy was surprisingly resilient in the second half of the year

given the fall-off at the start of the public health crisis,

according to data yesterday from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

But the post Rachel Siegel, Andrew Van Dam, and Erica Warner,

report that the 1% growth in the fourth quarter

signaled a faltering recovery and a long road ahead

with 9.8 million jobs still missing and 23.8 million adults struggling to feed their

families. It's the first time the economy has contracted for the

year since 2009 when gross domestic product shrank by 2.5% during the depths of the

Great Recession. The next worst plunge was 1946 when the economy shrank by 11.6% as the nation demobilized

from its wartime footing.

Consumer spending in the final three months of the year slowed down in all 15 categories tracked by the BEA as the sectors

that powered third quarter growth faltered.

Americans spent less on restaurants and hotels, a sector that had been a surprising

...