Economy grows at record rate in third quarter

The number of Americans seeking first-time unemployment benefits last week decreased by more than 40,000 to 751,000, according to the Labor Department’s Thursday report. A quarterly report from the Commerce Department also showed a 33.1 percent annualized rise in gross domestic product during the months of July, August, and September.

Has the economy recovered? That’s the largest growth in any quarter since tracking began in 1947, but it doesn’t quite make up for the first-quarter and second-quarter drops of 5 percent and 31.4 percent, respectively. Though the unemployment rate is below 8 percent, the jobs market is 10.7 million positions short of returning to pre-pandemic numbers, and some states and cities are reimposing restrictions as COVID-19 cases rise again.

Dig deeper: Read Steve West’s report in Liberties on the legal battle over lockdowns on churches.