Bessent says U.S. will finish the year with 3% GDP growth, sees 'very strong' holiday season

Bessent says U.S. will finish the year with 3% GDP growth, sees 'very strong' holiday season

Published Sun, Dec 7 2025

3:14 PM EST

Updated 1 Min Ago

Key Points

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that it's been a "very strong" holiday season for the economy and predicted that the U.S. would end the year at 3% real GDP.
• Bessent said American consumers' views on affordability have been affected by media coverage of the economy.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks onstage during The New York Times DealBook Summit 2025 at Jazz at Lincoln Center on December 03, 2025 in New York City.

David Dee Delgado | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday that it's been a "very strong" holiday shopping season so far and predicted that the U.S. economy would end the year on strong footing.

"The economy has been better than we thought. We've had 4% GDP growth in a couple of quarters," he said in an interview on CBS News' 'Face the Nation.' "We're going to finish the year, despite the Schumer shutdown, with 3% real GDP growth."

Gross domestic product contracted by 0.6% year-over-year for the first three months of 2025, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The second quarter of the year saw a 3.8% increase.

Initial estimates from the BEA for the third quarter economic results are scheduled to publish on December 23. The latest estimate from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, on December 5, puts third-quarter annual GDP growth at 3.5%.

Consumers, whose spending accounts for nearly 70% of U.S. GDP, remain gloomy about the state of the economy. The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment survey came in at 53.3 in December, up 4.5% from November but down 28% from this time last year.

More CNBC coverage on U.S. economy

• Core inflation rate watched by Fed hit 2.8%, delayed September data shows
• Layoff announcements top 1.1 million in 2025, the highest since 2020
• Bessent says Trump admin can replicate tariffs even if it loses Supreme Court decision
• Private payrolls unexpectedly fell by 32,000 in November, ADP reports

The latest report on inflation, delayed by the government shutdown, showed consumer prices rising 3% year-over-year in September, including a 3.1% uptick in cost for food at home.

As rising prices continue to affect consumers, President Donald Trump has pushed back on the idea that Americans are struggling financially.

"The word 'affordability' is a con job by the Democrats," Trump said during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. "The word 'affordability' is a Democrat scam."

Lately, voters have expressed frustration with Trump's handling of the economy. Around two-thirds of registered voters say the Trump administration has fallen short on the economy and the cost of living, according to a recent poll from NBC News.

When asked about Trump's comments on Sunday, Bessent said that the administration was dealing with inflation issues leftover from the Biden administration and pointed to media coverage as a source of Americans' view of the economy.  

"The American people don't know how good they have it," he said. "Now, Democrats created scarcity, whether it was in energy or over-regulation, that we are now seeing this affordability problem, and I think next year we're going to move on to prosperity."

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