White House: US economic recovery accelerating

The White House on Thursday seized on new government figures showing a surprising spurt of economic growth, with top economic aide Jason Furman saying the 2.8 percent annualized pace of gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the third quarter showed the recovery was accelerating. But Furman, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, warned that the government shutdown that saw hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed last month would hurt future growth. "During the third quarter, the economy grew at its fastest pace in a year, an indication that the recovery was continuing to gain traction in the months before the government shutdown," Furman said in a statement. "We now have an opportunity to build on this progress by increasing certainty for businesses and investing in jobs and growth, while avoiding the types of self-inflicted wounds that restrained the economy in the early part of the fourth quarter," Furman wrote. The White House aide noted that several forecasters have said the shutdown's impact on fourth-quarter GDP growth will be between 0.2 and 0.6 percentage point.