Thursday's GDP report is virtually certain to show that the economy grew at its fastest pace on record in the third quarter. But don't be fooled: The economy is nowhere close to a full recovery. In fact, even after the third-quarter's record-setting growth, U.S. gross domestic product will probably still be 3% to 4% smaller than at the end of 2019. That's about how much the economy shrank during the entire Great Recession a decade ago. Even worse, progress is slowing. Despite the rosy-sounding numbers, growth was actually weak during most of the third quarter, and forecasters expect it to weaken further in the final three months of the year. To understand the tricky math behind third quarter growth, and why Thursday's report could be misleading, see my story in The New York Times : #economy #recession #economics #unemployment #jobs …see more