Here’s what we know about the US economy in the early days of 2020: there was a manufacturing boom in 2017 and 2018. This boom lifted manufacturing employment by 190,000 jobs in 2017 to 12.545 million and another 264,000 jobs in 2018 to 12.809 million. That 2018 increase was the largest in 20 years. The Federal Reserve’s manufacturing production figures support this, showing manufacturing production up 2.5% and 2.2% in 2017 and 2018 respectively.

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