11/12– Weekly Economic Highlights

President Biden is expected to sign the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act on Monday, a $1 trillion package (including about $550 billion in newly authorized spending) to be allocated toward public infrastructure improvements including roads, bridges, public transit, rail, ports, water, and broadband. Unlike the pandemic-related relief packages that were passed last year and earlier this year, which swiftly injected fiscal spending dollars into the economy, the infrastructure spending plan aims to deploy investments gradually over the course of the next five years. Meanwhile, Congress is still negotiating the Biden Administration’s Build Back Better Act, which could potentially add an estimated $1.75 trillion in social safety and climate-related spending (downsized from the original proposal of about $3.5 trillion) in areas including caregiving, clean energy, healthcare, and housing. In our view, tailwinds from robust fiscal and monetary policy over the past two years, improvements in public infrastructure and continued fiscal spending, along with an improving health situation, bodes well for next year’s economic growth outlook, even as the Federal Reserve begins to shift toward a more normalized monetary policy stance.

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