A look back at 2021 thus far.
The year in brief. 2021 has been a year of economic and business recovery – a recovery tempered by the delta variant of the coronavirus, but a rebound nonetheless.
Stateside economic indicators were largely up this year, some strikingly so. As more industries opened up fully in the first half of the year, pent-up consumer demand for goods and services grew quickly, but supply could not keep up in many sectors. Inflation made a comeback, and analysts were divided on whether it would decline in the near term or persist at elevated levels. Cheap oil became a memory, along with cheap gas. Congress spent much of the year trying to compromise on a multitrillion-dollar infrastructure bill, and more recently started working on debt limit and budget legislation. Around the world, supply-chain issues and ongoing vaccination efforts tempered global growth.
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