The Commerce Department said Thursday that the U.S. economy grew at a sluggish 0.5% annual pace in the fourth quarter of 2025, downgrading its previous estimate of 0.7%. The report said the American economy was slowed by last fall’s 43-day government shutdown, a reminder that when the machinery of the state jams, ordinary people and the broader economy are the ones forced to absorb the damage. **Who Pays When the Apparatus Stops** U.S. gross domestic product, the nation’s output of goods and services, decelerated in the fourth quarter after growing 4.4% in the third quarter and 3.8% in the second quarter. For all of 2025, the economy grew 2.1%, slower than 2.8% in 2024 and 2.9% in 2023. The numbers show a slowdown after stronger growth earlier in the year, with the latest quarter dragged down by a shutdown that came from above and landed below. Federal government spending and investment fell at a 16.6% annual pace because of the shutdown, lopping 1.16 percentage points off fourth-quarter GDP growth. That is the kind of damage that gets translated into neat percentages by the people who count it, while the disruption itself is lived by everyone who depends on wages, services, and basic stability. The report does not describe any relief from the shutdown, only the measurable hit it delivered. Consumer spending expanded 1.9%, down from the previous estimate and from 3.5% in the second quarter. Spending on goods such as cars and clothing grew 0.3%, down from 3% in the July-September period. Business investment, excluding housing, increased at a 2.4% pace, likely reflecting money being poured into artificial intelligence, but the increase was down from 3.2% in the third quarter. A category measuring the economy’s underlying strength grew at a 1.8% clip, down from 2.9% in the third quarter. **What the Numbers Say About Power** The Commerce Department said Thursday’s report was its third and final estimate of fourth-quarter GDP, and the first look at January-March economic growth is due April 30. The ritual of revisions and estimates keeps the public waiting for official interpretation while the underlying conditions remain shaped by decisions made elsewhere. The economic outlook for this year was described as hazy after the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran drove up energy prices and disrupted global commerce. That haze is not abstract for people at the bottom of the hierarchy; it is the cost of conflicts and disruptions managed by states and passed along through prices, spending, and instability. **The Official Story, in Its Own Words** The Commerce Department’s final estimate puts the fourth quarter at 0.5%, down from 0.7%. The same report ties the slowdown to last fall’s 43-day government shutdown, with federal spending and investment falling sharply and subtracting 1.16 percentage points from GDP growth. The broader year ended at 2.1%, below the prior two years, while consumer spending, goods spending, business investment, and the economy’s underlying strength all slowed from earlier quarters.
