WASHINGTON (IslamOnline) – The United States Commerce Department announced Wednesday that the economic growth rate for the third quarter of 2000 to be only 2.6%, making it the lowest rate in the past four years.
The growth rate came 0.3% short from predictions made by officials just a month ago, but higher than what some analysts suggested it to be; 2.2% for the July-September 2000, period.
The slow down in the growth was also the lowest this year, but seemed well orchestrated by Federal Reserve officials in order to curb rising inflation. The numbers showed an inflation gauge tied to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at an annual rate of 1.9% in the third quarter. For some analysts, that is the best showing this year.
Federal officials stated that they wanted to create a soft slow economic growth in order to ease rising inflation due to too much money and fewer available goods in the market.
The downfall from the second quarter’s 5.6% was blamed on a larger trade deficit than originally estimated, less business investment and a smaller buildup in business inventories, and a sharp drop in government spending, reflected in layoffs of temporary workers hired to conduct the 2000 census.
GDP growth for the past three years, of which the Clinton administration took credit, had remained at rates over four percent.
Consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of total economic activity, grew at an annual rate of 4.5% in the third quarter, an improvement from the 3.1% rate in the second quarter, but below the 7.6% surge seen in the first three months of this year.
