U.S. economy grows by 4.3% in third quarter, much more than expected, delayed report shows

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CNBC

Published Tue, Dec 23 20258:40 AM EST Updated 12 Min Ago


The U.S. economy grew at a much greater-than-expected pace in the third quarter, boosted by strong consumer spending, a delayed report released Tuesday showed.

U.S. GDP, a sum of all goods and services produced in the sprawling U.S. economy, expanded by 4.3% in the July-September period, the Commerce Department said in its initial reading of third-quarter growth. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect a gain of 3.2%.

Consumer spending expanded by 3.5% in the third quarter after rising 2.5% in the second quarter. Increases in exports and government spending also boosted growth, while a smaller dip in private fixed investment helped as well.

The report originally had been scheduled for release on Oct. 30 but was delayed by the government shutdown. This release also replaces a second estimate that was set to drop on Nov. 26. The department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis will release one final estimate later.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/23/us-economy-grows-by-4point3percent-in-third-quarter-much-more-than-expected-delayed-report-shows.html

---

From the source -

Link to tweet

BEA News
@BEA_News
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The U.S. economy grew at a 4.3% annualized rate in Q3.

https://bea.gov/data/gdp/gross-domestic-product


#GDP
8:30 AM · Dec 23, 2025

Article updated.

Previous articles -

Published Tue, Dec 23 20258:40 AM EST Updated 4 Min Ago


The U.S. economy grew at a much bigger-than-expected pace in the third quarter, boosted by strong consumer spending, a delayed report released Tuesday showed.

U.S. GDP expanded by 4.3% in the July-September period, the Commerce Department said in its initial reading of third-quarter growth. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect a gain of 3.2%.


This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.

Published Tue, Dec 23 20258:40 AM EST Updated 1 Min Ago


The U.S. economy grew at a much bigger-than-expected pace in the third quarter, boosted by strong consumer spending, a delayed report released Tuesday showed.

This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.

Original article -

Published Tue, Dec 23 20258:40 AM EST


This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.

[sop]

1. Cooked data?

[highplainsdem]

7. Any reason to believe Trump wouldn't lie to make himself look better?

[Hugin]

8. Perish the thought.

[Hieronymus Phact]

20. When has he NOT cooked the books?

[FakeNoose]

2. This happens when we never get the real data

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Anybody believe that?

[Lovie777]

4. Hell no..................

[LoisB]

13. Nope

[bdamomma]

14. you know

when I read that I said to myself WTF??? No, I don't believe it.

[Rebl2]

15. Nope

Never believe anything they say about the economy

[OldBaldy1701E]

36. Let's see....

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAnope.

[DemMedic]

5. How much of this is based on higher cost due to tariffs?

???

[underpants]

26. Much (maybe most) of personal consumption was for Healthcare

Link to tweet

?s=46&t=3VBm1LJ8j8qLp6JTs_8J2A

[fujiyamasan]

38. Very disturbing

We basically have a ticking timebomb.

With AI related job displacements increasing and the end of ACA subsidies, we’re going to see a spike in bankruptcies, needless death, and well happy republicans.

[True Dough]

6. On the one hand, I don't want the economy to collapse,

yet, I don't want Krasnov's policies to thrive. And, yes, it is extremely difficult to put credence in the figures we're fed by a less-than-transparent government.

[djacq]

9. Trump fired the Commissioner of BLS because he didn't like the numbers.

Not trusting anything coming from this administration.

[OrlandoDem2]

10. I believe we are in a full recession. Main Street is hurting!

[Rebl2]

17. I heard

somewhere last week on a newscast that stores say sales are sluggish. People are shopping, but not buying as much.

[mwb970]

11. And what effect did this have on prices or consumer sentiment?

[Ol Janx Spirit]

12. Okun's law--not really a law but informative--would suggest this number is not accurate, but there are caveats.

Okun's law is an empirically observed relationship between unemployment and losses in a country's production.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okun%27s_law

This seems an obvious thing, but Okun did a good job of quantifying it.

A couple of points though:
This is Q3 data, so we should have had this back in October. This means this data is capturing what happened over the summer and not the more recent slowdown in the economy. That said, holiday spending rose 4.2% this year according to Visa--but some of that is likely driven by higher prices IMO.

Imports are slowing due to tariffs, and they are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP--so imports going down actually makes the GDP number look better even though your local toy retailer that went out of business due to tariffs might beg to differ.
https://www.reuters.com/business/us-september-trade-deficit-lowest-more-than-five-years-goods-exports-soar-2025-12-11/

"The top 10 percent of U.S. households now account for nearly half of all spending, Moody’s Analytics recently estimated, the highest share since the late 1980s. Consumer sentiment has climbed among high earners but steadily fallen for other groups."
https://web.archive.org/web/20251019114215/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/business/economic-divide-spending-inflation-jobs.html
So these numbers are likely fueled by the "K-shaped" economy. When 90% of the population is in some sort of angst about their personal economy it eventually leads to political problems that even the top 10% can't get you out of.

It is hard to imagine that the 317,000 federal employees forced to leave the government this year will continue their spending habits for very long. Private sector employment remains flat, so that means that many--if not most--of these former federal workers have not reentered the workforce. At some point soon this should show up in the economic data--possibly in the Q4 numbers if we can rely on them.

So, if unemployment continues to tick up in Q4 we will certainly expect Okun's law to show up in the data.

[Nigrum Cattus]

16. don't believe it

how much of that was credit card debt ?
how do they define "economy" (spending) ?
what was the non-consumer economy rate during that time ?
checks in the mail - I love you - I won't ...

[mathematic]

18. This has been a hard year for econ statistics due to massive policy changes.

Tariffs, kicking out so many immigrants we might actually get workforce population declines, the 45 day shutdown, and of course, the downsizing of the departments that actually produce these reports have all contributed to increased uncertainty and variability in the data.

That said, people are terrible at identifying when we're in a recession. There are people everywhere that say we're in a recession whenever the party they voted for doesn't hold the Presidency. There are permabears that have called "15 of the last 2 recessions". There are people on DU that have said we've been in a recession for most of the last 25 years. There are mainstream economic commentators and forecasters that insisted we were going to enter a recession for some reason or another. (The Sahm rule in '24. The laughable contention that the Fed was raising rates "too fast" in '22. And so on.) Nevertheless, the US economy, which is bigger than any one man, keeps on.

[groundloop]

19. And when the real numbers are finally released the sudden drop off will be blamed on Democrats.

Damn the so called founding fathers screwed up big time by assuming Americans would never elect a full blown criminal to the White House.

[SamKnause]

21. Bullshit.

The entire administration is corrupt. Why would I believe any numbers they release ???

[tavernier]

22. Hardy Har Har

As they tell us not to believe our lying eyes.

[progree]

23. Consumer confidence (Conference Board) went down again, it was reported today

Last edited Tue Dec 23, 2025, 01:02 PM - Edit history (1)

Here's just a couple of excerpts

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/consumer-confidence-slides-december-lowest-151443095.html

Consumer confidence slides in December to lowest level since US tariffs rolled out in April, AP, 12/23/25

. . . The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index fell 3.8 points to 89.1 in December from November’s upwardly revised reading of 92.9. That is close to the 85.7 reading from April,

. . . Consumers’ assessments of their current economic situation tumbled 9.5 points to 116.8.

From the source:
https://www.conference-board.org/topics/consumer-confidence/



=============================================

Update: LBN Thread posted 3 minutes after posting this:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143587258

[IbogaProject]

24. I smell some B$ over in the Trump Barn

I have every doubt this is true. I can see road traffic is lighter than other years. Similar to the 2009-10 drop compared to 2006-07.

[progree]

25. Reuters on Q3 GDP -

Last edited Wed Dec 24, 2025, 05:04 AM - Edit history (2)

Some notes I made from this article - a mix of excerpts and my notes, sorry

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-economic-growth-accelerates-third-133710066.html

4.3% annualized rate. Economists polled by Reuters expected 3.3%

Consumer spending increased at a 3.5% rate. Much of ‌the consumer spending acceleration resulted from a rush to buy electric vehicles before the September 30 expiration of tax credits. Motor vehicle sales dropped in October ‍and November, while spending elsewhere was mixed.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated the shutdown could slice between 1.0 percentage point and 2.0 percentage points off GDP in the fourth quarter. (The shutdown began October 1 -- just after the end of the July 1 - Sept 30 period of this Q3 GDP report)

Surveys suggest consumer spending is being driven by higher-income households, thanks to a stock market boom that has inflated household wealth. In contrast, middle- and lower-income consumers are struggling ... K-shaped economy ...

That phenomenon (K-shaped economy) also is playing out among businesses. Economists said large corporations have mostly managed to withstand ⁠the blow from the import duties, which have increased ​costs, and are investing in artificial intelligence. (Investment outlays helps the GDP number). But smaller businesses ​are struggling with tariffs.

=======================================================
Additional factors from other media reports:

. . . Exports rose at an annualized rate of 8.8%, boosting the GDP number.

. . . Federal spending also played a sizable role, a reflection of the large uptick in defense spending as well as buyouts for federal workers.
=======================================================

Remember these are conditions in the 3 months ending September 30. So all the bad economic news we've been seeing in October, November, and most of December so far, are not a part of this. The government shutdown began October 1.

Imports hurt the GDP number. Someone mentioned upthread that a reduction of imports helps the GDP number, which may be one of the reasons Q3 GDP is high. I didn't see the imports factor mentioned at all in the Reuters story

Normally there are 3 estimates for each GDP report. For Q3 these estimates are normally: end of October, end of November, end of December

I don't know whether today's report is just the first of three estimates with two more to come, or what. It's "early" for the final estimate so might be one more coming (or maybe two). My thinking wondering if we will see two more estimates is that by now, they must have the information that would normally be in the second estimate, maybe even the third. Of course I'm well aware of the shutdown delays.

Most of the information for GDP estimates comes from businesses, and they didn't shut down.

A similar situation: for the famous headline "First Friday" payroll jobs numbers, there are 3 estimates, each a month apart. From what I've read, the need for 3 estimates is due to delayed reporting from surveyed businesses, not because it fundamentally takes BLS staffers 3 months to do the work.

Edited to add - There will be one more update for sure, and that's it. This is from BEA.gov which produces the GDP reports:

https://www.bea.gov/news/2025/gross-domestic-product-3rd-quarter-2025-initial-estimate-and-corporate-profits

. . . Next release: January 22, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. EST Gross Domestic Product, 3rd Quarter 2025 (Updated Estimate)

BEA's schedule of news releases show no further 3rd quarter GDP reports other than the January 22 one.
https://www.bea.gov/news/schedule

Yet another ETA - I revised the above ETA with info from BEA's schedule of news releases. I also added "Additional factors from other media reports" about a substantial rise in exports and federal spending

[Calista241]

27. I think it's the October one. The shutdown delayed a lot of reports / data collection.

[OLDMDDEM]

28. I think the number is bogus.

[bucolic_frolic]

29. LOL LOL LOL

That's why the stores are full, running sales everywhere, food is spoiling in the stores, and small businesses are closing. Got it.

[markodochartaigh]

30. It seems to me that there are too separate issues here, and that we shouldn't conflate them.

One issue is the actual numbers, which is the normal issue when these statistics are released.

The other issue, which isn't completely new, but which is probably a hundred times greater under Trump, is whether the numbers can be trusted.

[OC375]

31. My wallet says it didn't grow 4.3%, not for me at least.

In fact, I think these numbers have really just become a relative indicator of how deluded society's perception of the economy is at a given time.

[turbinetree]

32. Did CNBC fact check this stuff you know go over to the BLS to see what they have to say.........

oh yeah they are now being run by some fascist with orange hair telling everyone the sky is green or some other BS color for the day..........my raspberries for my Cheerios have double in price since this moron came back into power...............that my leading economic indicator..........

[Ritabert]

33. Fake stats

The highest increase listed is health insurance which we knew.

[Wiz Imp]

34. Data are legit but extremely misleading (and almost certainly skewed because of the shutdown)

1. AI spending accounts for roughly half of the increase

2. Defense spending is helping to buoy the economy as well

3. Imports have continued to decrease while exports have increased slightly driving the number higher due to the way this is calculated

4. Inflation is persistent and the bottom half of the country (or more potentially) is still struggling while the affluent are driving consumer spending to a sufficient level to increase GDP.

This last point is one worth looking at a little further. The BEA reported that most of this spending came from healthcare purchases. So it seems likely the a good deal of the affluent spending is coming from older Americans who have benefited the most from the explosion of asset prices while the rest of the country struggles, especially if those Americans aren't having their parents helping them out.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/1ptwrl7/us_gdp_grew_at_a_blistering_43_pace_in_the_third/

Government spending is also up which is artificially increasing the GDP.

GDP = C + I + G + (X − M)

where C = consumption, I = investment, G = government spending X = exports and M = imports.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

35. I do not trust any numbers from the trump assholes

[SonOfNebanaube]

37. chocolate rations are up!

++good.