MUMBAI: Fuelled by strong consumer spending and renews investment post vaccinations and government aid, the US economy grew at a strong 6.5 per cent annual rate last quarter in another sign that the nation has achieved a sustained recovery from the pandemic-driven recession. 

A report from the US Commerce Department estimated that the United States’s Gross Domestic Product, “its total output of goods and services”, accelerated in the April-June 2021 quarter from an already robust 6.3 per cent annual growth rate in the first quarter of the year. 

The figure was less than what analysts had expected, but the economy was likely held back mainly by supply shortages in goods, components and labour, the report added.

For all of 2021, the economy was expected to expand about 7 per cent. That would be the strongest calendar-year growth since 1984. And it would mark a sharp reversal from last year’s 3.5 per cent economic contraction “the worst in 74 years” as a result of the pandemic, the report revealed. 

Interestingly applications for the US state unemployment fell last week signalling that the job markets were improving even as the overhanging the rosy economic forecasts is the possibility of a resurgent Coronavirus in the form of the highly contagious Delta variant. 

The US is now averaging more than 60,000 confirmed new cases a day, up from only about 12,000 a month ago. Should a surge in viral infections cause many consumers to hunker down again and pull back on spending, it would weaken the recovery.