U.S. GDP Growth is Slowing. Should We Worry, or is Growth Overrated?

GDP growth is slowing. The latest release from the Bureau of Economic Statistics shows that U.S. real GDP slowed to 1.9 percent in the third quarter of 2019, down from 2.0 percent in the summer and 3.1 percent last spring.

By conventional reasoning, the slowdown is bad news. After all, doesn’t a rising tide lift all boats? Alas, it does not.