The U.S. economy's resilience in 2025 is expected to carry over when the calendar turns to 2026, with growth expected to accelerate as tax cuts and more favorable financial conditions take hold and headwinds from tariffs and inflation ease, according to Goldman Sachs.
Goldman Sachs economists led by Jan Hatzius wrote in their 2026 outlook that this year's economic growth was tempered by the impact of larger than expected tariffs, which pushed the average effective tariff rate on goods imported to the U.S. several percentage points higher than anticipated.
"While the tailwinds powering the U.S. economy did trump tariffs in the end, as we predicted, it didn't always look like they would and the estimated 2.1% growth rate fell 0.4pp short of our forecast," they wrote. "Our explanation for the shortfall is that the average effective tariff rate rose 11pp, much more than the 4pp we assumed in our baseline forecast though somewhat less than the 14pp we assumed in our downside scenario."
Goldman economists see the U.S. economy growing at a faster rate in 2026 with the firm forecasting 2.6% real GDP growth, above the Bloomberg consensus of 2%. That continues a post-pandemic trend of optimism around the U.S. economy relative to consensus forecasts.
Goldman projects that U.S. economic growth will accelerate in 2026 because of three factors. One of those is a reduced tariff drag, as the report notes that the 11pp increase in the average effective tariff rate cut 0.6 from U.S. GDP in the second half of 2025, but if tariff rates "remain broadly unchanged from here, this impact is likely to fade in 2026."
The tax cuts and reforms included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) are the second force expected to drive faster economic growth in 2026.