The labor market is not the only sign of trouble. A report released by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis on February 20 showed that economic growth slowed dramatically in the final months of last year, from 4.4 percent in the third quarter down to just 1.4 percent, bringing total yearly growth to its lowest level since the pandemic decimated the economy in 2020. (The BEA estimated that one percentage point of the quarterly drop was caused by the federal-government shutdown.) On the same day, another report from the BEA showed that prices had risen by 3 percent in December compared with a year prior, the highest rate of inflation since April 2024.