WESTFIELD — The state’s gross domestic product grew at an estimated annual rate of 5.5 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, outpacing growth by the U.S. as a whole, according to a report Thursday from the economic journal MassBenchmarks.
The report also said the state’s economy grew at a stronger clip than the nation in three of the four quarters in 2013, thanks in large part to rising household incomes and a stabilization of the European economy which allowed for a recovery in export activity from Massachusetts.
The U.S. Commerce Department reported Thursday that the nation’s economy grew at a 3.2 percent rate in the fourth quarter on the strength of the strongest consumer spending in three years.
“The Massachusetts economy appears to be benefiting from improving conditions in national and international economies, and by increasingly confident households who are demonstrating a willingness to spend,” said Alan Clayton-Matthews, a Northeastern University professor and senior contributing editor of MassBenchmarks.
The state saw a net increase in jobs of nearly 25,000 in the fourth quarter, and wages and salaries grew by 5.9 percent and spending on taxable items rose by 6.9 percent, according to the report.
However, the rising tide is not lifting all boats. Unemployment remains a big problem in Massachusetts and, at 7.0 percent the state’s unemployment rate remains slightly higher than that of the nation. Conditions are particularly difficult for the long-term unemployed, the young, and the poorly educated. In 2013, the annual average unemployment rate (from the Massachusetts Current Population Survey) for persons under 25 years old was 15.8 percent. For those with less than a high school education it was 20.1 percent.
MassBenchmarks is published by the Donahue Institute at the University of Massachusetts in collaboration with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
The UMass Donahue Institute’s Economic and Public Policy Research unit works with faculty on all five campuses to produce high-level economic and public policy research. The results of this research are disseminated as free-standing research reports.
