Goldman Sachs sees a slowdown in the US economy at the start of 2022

In the final stretch of the year, the economic recovery in the United States continues to gain momentum. After the setback suffered in the third quarter, when the GDP slowed down to grow at a rate of 2.3% (annualized), the GDPNow indicator of the Atlanta Federal Reserve considers a growth of 7.6% between the months of October and December.

A rebound as a result of the boom that continues to register consumption on this side of the Atlantic. However, the impact of the omicron variant, as occurred with the delta during the summer, threatens to bring a sharp halt to activity in the first quarter of 2022.

At least that is what the Goldman Sachs economists, led by Jan Hatzius, estimate, who in their review of the economic outlook for the US, moderate their expectations significantly until they are below what is estimated by both the consensus and the Federal Reserve itself.

Thus, the omicron coup and the expectations that President Joe Biden will not be able to advance his massive additional spending of 1.75 trillion dollars on Capitol Hill, at least for now, will lead to GDP to grow only 2% between January and March 2022. This represents a cut of one percentage point with respect to what was previously contemplated.

Negative fiscal impulse

“We already expected a negative fiscal impulse by 2022 as a result of the fading of support for the stimuli enacted in 2020 and 2021. Without the enactment of additional new spending, the fiscal burden will be somewhat greater than we expected,” says Hatzius. For next year as a whole, Goldman expects (annualized) growth of 3.5%, half a percentage point less than the consensus and the outlook that the Fed considered at its last monetary policy meeting of the year.

Right now, Goldman expects 2022 to be a moderation year so both growth and inflation will decline considerably by the end of the year. That said, prices will stay high for a while, long enough for the FOMC to justify three rate hikes and begin cutting its balance sheet next year.

As of Sunday, the seven-day average of patients in US hospital beds with confirmed and suspected Covid-19 cases (including the omicron and delta variants) exceeded 71,000, according to the latest data released by the Department of Health and Human Services. from the USA. This figure is higher than that of a month ago in almost 19,000 cases, but it is lower than that of the end of August and the beginning of September, when there were more than 100,000 hospitalizations due to the impact of the delta variant.