US economy ends tough 2011 on the upswing

WASHINGTON (AP) – The economy is ending 2011 on a roll.

The job market is healthier. Americans are spending lustily on holiday gifts. A long-awaited turnaround for the depressed housing industry may be under way. Gas is cheaper. Factories are busier. Stocks are higher.

Not bad for an economy faced with a debt crisis in Europe and, as recently as last summer, scattered predictions of a second recession at home. Instead, the economy has grown faster each quarter this year, and the last three months should be the best.

“Things are looking up,” says Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.

When The Associated Press surveyed 43 economists in August, they pegged the likelihood of another recession at roughly one in four. The Dow Jones industrial average was lurching up or down by 400 points or more some days.

There was plenty of reason for gloom. A political standoff over the federal borrowing limit brought the United States to the brink of default and cost the nation its top-drawer credit rating.

Most analysts now rule out another recession. They think the economy will grow at an annual rate of more than three percent from October through December, the fastest pace since a 3.8-percent performance in the spring of last year.

Many economists still worry that the year-end surge isn’t sustainable, in part because the average worker’s pay is barely rising. And Europe may already be sliding into a recession that will infect the United States.

The outlook could darken further if Congress can’t break the impasse blocking an extension of a Social Security tax cut for 160 million Americans and emergency unemployment benefits.

Yet for now, the economy is on an upswing that few had predicted:

• Jobs: The number of people applying for unemployment benefits came in at 366,000 last week, down from a peak of 659,000 in March 2009. Even in good economic times, the figure would be between 280,000 and 350,000.

Employers have added at least 100,000 jobs five months in a row, the longest streak since 2006. And the unemployment rate fell from nine percent in October to 8.6 percent last month, the lowest since March 2009.

• Spending: The holiday shopping season has turned out better than anyone expected. Sales from November through Saturday were up 2.5 percent from last year. Americans have spent $32 billion online, 15 percent more than a year ago. Retails sales were up in November for the sixth month in a row. People are spending, in particular, on clothes, cars, electronics and furniture.

• Consumer Confidence: Americans felt better about the economy in November than they had since July, according to the Conference Board, a business group that tracks the mood of consumers.

The board’s consumer confidence index climbed 15 points to 56 in November, the biggest one-month jump since April 2003. During the Great Recession, the index fell as low as 25.

• Gas: Falling prices at the pump have freed more money for consumers to spend on appliances, furniture, vacations and other things that help drive the economy. The national average for regular unleaded has sunk to $3.21 a gallon since peaking at $3.98 in May, according to the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge.

• Inventories: Businesses are restocking shelves and warehouses, more confident that customers will buy their products. In October, their inventories were up 8.7 percent from a year earlier. An increase in inventories is expected to account for perhaps a third of growth this quarter.

The battered housing market might be showing signs of recovery. Home construction rose more than nine percent in November from October, driven by apartment building. And the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that sales of previously occupied homes rose four percent in November.

But housing is climbing out of a deep hole: The existing homes sold at an annual rate of 4.4 million — well below the six million that would signal a healthy housing market. And the real-estate agents’ trade group revealed Wednesday that it overstated sales by 3.5 million during and after the Great Recession.

Once they peer into 2012, economists turn cautious. Bernard Baumohl, chief economist with the Economic Outlook Group, says that stronger consumer spending “is absolutely unsustainable. .... Wages have not kept pace with inflation all year.”