Personal consumption increased at an annual rate of 10.7%. All of this indicates the economy is very close to where it was before the pandemic in terms of GDP, said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics. “Within 1% now. So yeah, pretty close indeed.” Yet where we were a year ago is not where we would be now if the pandemic had never happened. But, Ashworth added, we’re pretty close to getting there too: “We’ve still got about 2% to make up to get back to that pre-virus path.”