The US economy’s doing pretty well. In aggregate.

Note the caveat: In aggregate. There’s absolutely a sense in which America’s a Potemkin village. Behind the gilded facade is a worsening “haves” / “have-nots” divide, and the pandemic threw it into even starker relief. There are pockets of almost Third World poverty in the US, and inequality is, in my view, criminally extreme.

But everything can’t be a wailing lament for the deplorable state of American society. Sometimes (which is to say every, single day if I want to placate a readership comprised mostly of the well-to-do), I have to pretend the macro aggregates are a reflection of the underlying reality.

So, again: The US economy’s doing pretty well. In aggregate.

On Wednesday, the BEA said growth ran 2.8% last quarter. In a testament to the idea that things are going relatively well for the US, that actually counted as a disappointment. Economists were hoping for 2.9%. Not surprisingly, spending was to thank for the brisk expansion.

As the figure shows, the personal consumption component accelerated again, printing a robust 3.7% for Q3. That was the quickest since Q1 of 2023 and easily ahead of estimates.

In the simplest terms: You’re not going to get a recession in an economy driven by spending with that kind of consumer momentum.

Business spending, on the other hand, slowed to 3.3%. That was the weakest reading in a year, but it hardly counted as a crash. Q2’s pace was 3.9%. Residential investment contracted 5.1%, not surprising given the rather vexing circumstances in the housing market. It was the second quarterly contraction in a row. The key “final sales to private domestic purchasers” line item in the GDP release showed a 3.2% gain, healthy to be sure.

The figure above shows you the breakdown by contribution. It’s all personal spending. Pretty much.

On the inflation front, the core PCE index printed 2.2% for Q3. That was a touch high (consensus wanted 2.1%). The deflator was 1.8%.

Meanwhile, ADP private hiring was an absolute scorcher. US private sector employers added 233,000 jobs last month, according to the release. That was so far ahead of estimates as to render consensus irrelevant. Suffice to say no one was anywhere close.

September’s pace was revised higher to show a 159,000 gain. October’s ADP headline was the warmest since July of 2023, and it took the three-month average up to 165,000, the fastest since June.

“Even amid hurricane recovery, job growth was strong in October,” Nela Richardson said. “As we round out the year, hiring in the US is proving to be robust and broadly resilient.”

The breakdown was just “jobs, jobs, jobs.” Jobs everywhere. Except for manufacturing. Factories shed 19,000 positions on net.

Fortunately for the Fed, pay growth for so-called “job changers” decelerated sharply for a second month to “just” 6.2%, according to ADP’s “pay insights” series. That’s down a full percentage point since July, and the lowest since March of 2021, which is to say the lowest since inflation accelerated in earnest.

Although relatively cool wage growth in the ADP release and the decent read on the core PCE index from the GDP report ostensibly give the Fed cover to move again next week, it’s very hard to see a data-based case for another cut right now.

If Friday’s jobs report looks anything like ADP (and it may not, by the way), Jerome Powell could have a difficult time cajoling the Committee’s hawks. Because, coming full circle, the US economy’s fine.