Been looking back at how the US economy actually held up in 2024, and honestly it's pretty interesting. Everyone was bracing for a slowdown with interest rates staying elevated and the whole election uncertainty hanging over things, but the economy just kept chugging along. Outperformed most other major developed economies too, which says something about the underlying economic health.

The real driver? Consumer spending. Household wealth hit record levels, and even though people burned through their pandemic savings, wage growth actually beat inflation for once. That combination kept confidence relatively solid despite all the headwinds. You could feel it in the data—Americans kept spending even when borrowing got expensive.

But here's where it gets complicated. Inflation didn't cooperate the way some expected. It stayed sticky, manufacturing took a hit from those elevated rates, and the labor market started showing real cracks. Job openings dried up, hiring slowed, unemployment ticked higher. Credit-dependent consumers started falling behind on payments. The economic health picture wasn't as clean as the headline numbers suggested.

Fed tried to thread the needle by cutting rates later in the year, but they moved cautiously. Makes sense though—they're basically trying to keep growth going while inflation's still lurking. It's a delicate balance, and honestly, how well they pull it off will probably define the next phase of this cycle. The real test of economic health is whether they can actually manage that without creating new problems.