A blowout gross domestic product report on Thursday showed the economy surged over the summer, driven in part by consumer spending.

The 4.9 percent increase in GDP is a great headline for “Bidenomics” at a time when voters just aren’t buying what the president has done for their bank accounts.

But economists predict this may be as good as it gets for the near future — and some fear it may spur the Federal Reserve to do more to slow growth and fight inflation. Here’s a breakdown:

What economists expected

It beat some economists’ expectations but fell short of others. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s “GDPNow” model had estimated that the economy grew 5.4 percent in the third quarter.

Still, the number showed the economy expanded at its fastest rate in nearly two years.

“The U.S. economy’s resilience will likely be on full display,” Wells Fargo economists said before the release.

Along those lines, the Treasury Department released a report Thursday that said the U.S. economy has not only outperformed expectations this year but has also helped support the global outlook.

“The progress we have made on growth, labor markets and inflation stands out across the globe, and remains an important source of strength for the global economy,” Treasury acting assistant secretary Eric Van Nostrand and deputy assistant secretary Tara Sinclair said.

Sounds great! Are voters feeling it?

If they are, they’re not giving President Joe Biden much credit. His economic approval ratings are still in the red by double digits, including his handling of inflation. More than half of the people surveyed in an Oct. 21-24 Economist/YouGov poll said the economy is getting worse.

What could go wrong?

Economists are expecting growth to slow heading into next year.

Borrowing costs are rising, pandemic financial buffers are being drawn down and student loans are coming due – not to mention the hot wars playing out in the Middle East and Ukraine. The talk among CEOs is that they aren’t thrilled about what’s in store for the economy next year.

It underscores that the third-quarter GDP number may be stellar, but it’s a dated snapshot.

The question then becomes: To what extent will Jerome Powell’s data-driven Fed take action based on the new stat, which could suggest more work is needed to head off inflation? The Fed is expected to hold interest rates steady when it meets next week.

“That’s where I constantly feel this tension between the Fed having been and continuing to be extremely data dependent — and backward-looking as a result — versus what would be optimal in the current environment, which is a forward-looking perspective,” EY-Parthenon chief economist Gregory Daco said Wednesday.

The key issue, according to Daco, is whether consumers and business leaders still have the buffers they need to keep spending into 2024 amid a persistently high-cost, high-interest rate environment.

“The answer to that question, in my opinion, is no,” he said. “But depending on how you respond to that question, you’re going to want to be more or less hawkish in terms of monetary policy.”

The Patriots are signing wide receiver Jalen Reagor from their practice squad to their active roster, per source.

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Reagor fills the open roster spot created when the team released quarterback Malik Cunningham on Tuesday. The Pats have since re-signed Cunningham to their practice squad.

Reagor, 24, originally signed to the Patriots’ practice in late August. He has been elevated for three regular-season games this season, the maximum allowed by league rules. Reagor caught an 11-yard pass last weekend versus Buffalo, his first of the season. He now becomes the seventh receiver on the roster, joining JuJu Smith-Schuster, DeVante Parker, Kendrick Bourne, Demario Douglas, Tyquan Thornton and Kayshon Boutte.

The former first-round pick entered the league in the 2020 NFL Draft with the Eagles. Known for his rare speed, Reagor disappointed over his first two seasons with Philadelphia, where he caught 64 passes for 695 yards and four touchdowns. The Eagles traded him to Minnesota last year, and he caught just eight passes with the Vikings.

Reagor was among Minnesota’s final roster cuts this summer. Pats coach Bill Belichick said of him Wednesday: “Jalen’s come in, been a really good scout team player for us. We’ve played against a lot of top receivers, and he’s gotten a lot of a good opportunities with some of the routes that those guys run to kind of be featured a little bit on some of the scout team plays. He’s earned some playing time, which has come from his practice time, practice performance. He’s picking up the offense, and we’ll see how it goes.

“He’s got good talent, good guy to work with, glad we have him.”

WASHINGTON — The nation’s economy expanded at a robust 4.9% annual rate from July through September as Americans defied higher prices, rising interest rates and widespread forecasts of a recession to spend at a brisk pace.

The Commerce Department said the economy expanded last quarter at the fastest pace in more than two years — and more than twice the 2.1% annual rate of the previous quarter.

Thursday’s report on the nation’s gross domestic product — the economy’s total output of goods and services — showed that consumers drove the acceleration, ramping up their spending on everything from cars to restaurant meals. Even though the painful inflation of the past two years has soured many people’s view of the economy, millions have remained willing to splurge on vacations, concert tickets and sports events.

Last quarter’s robust growth, though, may prove to be a high-water mark for the economy before a steady slowdown begins in the current October-December quarter and extends into 2024. The breakneck pace is expected to ease as higher long-term borrowing rates, on top of the Federal Reserve’s short-term rate hikes, cool spending by businesses and consumers.

The growth figures for the third quarter revealed that federal, state, and local governments ramped up their spending, and businesses built up their stockpiles of goods in warehouses and on shelves, which helped drive growth higher. The economy managed to accelerate despite the Fed’s strenuous efforts to slow growth and inflation by raising its benchmark short-term interest rate to about 5.4%, its highest level in 22 years.

Several Fed officials acknowledged in speeches last week that the most recent economic data showed growth picking up by more than they had expected. Still, most of the policymakers signaled that they will likely keep their key rate, which affects many consumer and business loans, unchanged when they meet next week.

A range of factors are helping fuel consumer spending, which accounts for the bulk of the economy’s growth. Though many Americans are still feeling under pressure from two years of high inflation, average pay is starting to outpace price increases and enhance people’s ability to spend.

Wages and salaries in the April-June quarter, the latest period for which data is available, rose 1.7% after adjusting for inflation, according to the Labor Department. That was the fastest quarterly increase in three years.

Americans, as a whole, also began the year on healthy financial footing, according to a report last week from the Fed. The net worth of a typical household jumped 37% from 2019 through 2022. Home prices shot higher, and the stock market rose in the biggest surge on records dating back more than 30 years.

At the same time, families benefited from the unusually low interest rates that lasted from the pandemic recession of 2020 until late last year. The typical household — the one midway between the richest and poorest — paid 13.4% of its income to cover interest on debts, the lowest such proportion on record.

Still, consumers are likely reining in their spending in the final three months of the year, and the sluggish housing market is dragging on the economy as well. This month, nearly 30 million people began repaying several hundred dollars a month in student loans, which could slow their ability to spend. Those loan repayments had been suspended when the pandemic struck three years ago.

The economy faces other challenges as well, including the prospect of a government shutdown next month and a spike in longer-term interest rates since July. The average 30-year mortgage rate is approaching 8%, a 23-year high, putting home buying out of reach for many more Americans.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell, in a discussion last week, said he was generally pleased with how the economy was evolving: Inflation has slowed to an annual rate of 3.7% from a four-decade high of 9.1% in June 2022. At the same time, steady growth and hiring have forestalled a recession, which was widely predicted at the end of last year.

If those trends continue, it could allow the Fed to achieve a highly sought-after “soft landing,” in which it would manage to slow inflation to its 2% target without causing a deep recession.

At the same time, Powell has acknowledged that if the economy were to keep growing robustly, the Fed might have to raise rates further. Its benchmark short-term rate is now about 5.4%, a 22-year high.

Fed officials were surprised by a blowout government report last week on retail sales, which showed that spending at stores and restaurants jumped last month by much more than expected. Americans spent more both for necessities like gas and groceries as well as for discretionary items, such as cars and restaurant meals, on which consumers typically cut back if they are worried about a weakening economy.

And while high mortgage rates have depressed the sales of existing homes, the vast majority of homeowners are still paying low rates that are fixed for 30 years, meaning that their housing costs remain low even as the Fed hikes rates. That’s a contrast to homeowners in the United Kingdom and Europe, for example, who are more likely to have floating-rate mortgages. About eight in 10 U.S. homeowners have a mortgage rate below 5%, according to online brokerage Redfin.

With inflation generally easing, the Fed is expected to keep its short-term rate unchanged when it meets next week. Many economists increasingly expect the central bank’s policymakers to keep rates on hold when they meet in December as well.

Powell will hold a news conference Wednesday that will be scrutinized for any hints about the Fed’s next moves.

Coming off a 30-12 romp over the Las Vegas Raiders, the Chicago Bears will finish off the AFC West portion of their schedule Sunday night when they travel to Los Angeles to face the Chargers.

Matt Eberflus is still looking to win consecutive games for the first time as Bears coach. But the Bears have played much better in all three phases this month and will wrap up October on the “Sunday Night Football” stage. As the game approaches, here’s a look at 12 attention-grabbing facts and figures.

1

Combined total of turnovers and sacks taken by Bears quarterback Tyson Bagent in his first NFL start Sunday. Bagent completed 21 of 29 passing attempts for 162 yards and a touchdown and posted a 97.2 passer rating. He also had three runs for 24 yards. Bagent averaged 7.7 yards per completion and didn’t attempt a pass that traveled more than 15 yards beyond the line of scrimmage but still guided the Bears to a runaway victory. Of the last 10 quarterbacks to make their first NFL start with the Bears — Bagent, Justin Fields, Mitch Trubisky, Matt Barkley, Caleb Hanie, Kyle Orton, Craig Krenzel, Rex Grossman, Henry Burris and Shane Matthews — Bagent’s first-start rating ranks second and his passing yardage total fifth.

3

Touchdowns running back D’Onta Foreman scored in Sunday’s win, making him the second Bears player this season to reach the end zone three times in the same game. Receiver DJ Moore had three touchdowns in the Bears’ Week 5 victory against the Washington Commanders. Other Bears to accomplish that feat over the past 20 seasons include Taylor Gabriel, Jordan Howard, Brandon Marshall (twice), Matt Forte (twice) and Greg Olsen. Foreman scored on runs of 2 and 3 yards and added a 5-yard touchdown reception from Tyson Bagent. The last time the Bears had multiple players score at least three touchdowns in a game during the same season was 1995, when receiver Curtis Conway and running back Rashaan Salaam did so.

39

Return yardage by cornerback Jaylon Johnson on his interception return touchdown in Sunday’s win. Johnson swiped a Brian Hoyer pass intended for Davante Adams in the fourth quarter and raced untouched into Soldier Field’s north end zone. It was Johnson’s first NFL touchdown and first end-zone visit since Nov. 2, 2019, when he returned a Jacob Eason interception for a TD in a 33-28 Utah win against Washington. That return? Also 39 yards.

31

Games, before Johnson’s pick-six Sunday, that had passed since the Bears’ last defensive touchdown. The Bears hadn’t recorded a defensive TD since Week 9 of 2021, when DeAndre Houston-Carson had a 25-yard fumble-return score against the Pittsburgh Steelers on “Monday Night Football.”

6

Sacks by San Diego Chargers edge rusher Khalil Mack in the team’s 24-17 Week 4 win against the Raiders, the most by any NFL player in a game since Falcons defensive lineman Adrian Clayborn had six against the Cowboys in 2017. Mack, who was one sack shy of Derrick Thomas’ single-game record, has had only one sack in the Chargers’ other five games. He had eight sacks in 2022 after the Bears traded him to the Chargers for a 2022 second-round pick and a 2023 sixth-rounder. The Bears traded the latter selection back to the Chargers in exchange for two 2022 Round 7 selections. Overall, they used the return from the Mack deal to draft safeties Jaquan Brisker and Elijah Hicks and punter Trenton Gill.

17-16

Score of the last meeting between these teams, a Chargers victory in Week 8 of 2019 at Soldier Field. That game ended when Bears kicker Eddy Pineiro pulled a potential game-winning 41-yard field-goal attempt wide left as time expired. Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky had two costly fourth-quarter turnovers in that loss and also missed a near-certain 58-yard touchdown pass to Taylor Gabriel late. On the final possession, Matt Nagy chose to kneel down with 43 seconds remaining on first-and-10 from the Chargers 21 rather than attempt a run or pass before sending Pineiro out for his kick. Pineiro noted two days later that he would have preferred to attempt that final kick from the right hash mark rather than the left. That was the second of four consecutive losses for the Bears in a dispirting 8-8 season.

25

First-half points allowed by the Bears over their four October games. The defense has been on the field for 18 possessions before halftime this month and has allowed only two touchdowns and four field goals. The average halftime score of those contests: Bears 17, Opponents 6.

.174

Third-down conversion rate of Bears opponents the last two games. The Vikings were 2-for-13 on third downs in Week 6 at Soldier Field, and the Raiders were 2-for-9 on Sundasy. Through five games, the Bears defense allowed opponents to convert 58.2% of their third downs, an NFL worst. They have climbed one rung on the ladder above the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

285.1

Average passing yards per game by Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert, the second highest average in NFL history among players with at least 1,000 passing attempts. The only quarterback to average more is Patrick Mahomes (301.8). For comparison’s sake, since Herbert entered the league as the No. 6 pick in 2020, all Bears quarterbacks have averaged 203.6 passing yards per game. Herbert’s 1,458 career completions already have set the NFL record for most completions through a player’s first four seasons. He alsois credited with 14 game-winning drives through his first 55 starts.

139

Receiving yards needed by Chargers standout Keenan Allen to become the 54th player in NFL history to reach 10,000. Since joining the Chargers as a third-round pick in 2013, Allen has averaged 80 catches, 929 yards and five touchdowns per season. He is on pace this season for career highs in catches (130), yards (1,626) and TDs (11).

140:38

Game time the Bears have led — out of 240 minutes — in four games this month. The Bears recorded dominant wire-to-wire victories over the Commanders and Raiders and held a 28-7 lead before losing to the Denver Broncos. They have trailed for only 50:34 this month with 43:33 of that coming in a Week 6 loss to the Vikings.

6

Consecutive losses by the Bears on “Sunday Night Football,” all by double figures. That includes two defeats in Los Angeles — to the Rams. The average score of those six losses has been 32-15. The Bears’ last victory on “Sunday Night Football” was a 15-6 defeat of the Rams in 2018. This will be the team’s only Sunday night game this season.

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