FRANKFURT—Germany’s budget surplus swelled last year and touched all levels of government for the first time since reunification more than two decades ago, strengthening its hand in helping to dictate how vulnerable European countries such as Greece should improve their own finances while likely underscoring worries that Germany isn’t doing enough to stimulate its economy.
The government’s surplus totaled €18 billion ($20.4 billion) in 2014, which equals around 0.6% of gross domestic product, the country’s statistics office Destatis said Tuesday.
That was up from a EUR4.2 billion surplus in 2013. It was the first time all government levels—which include the central government, state and local governments and social security fund—achieved surpluses since German reunification in 1990.
The figures support Germany’s view that “we’re leading by example and using the good times” to get fiscal policies in order, said Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING Bank.
Germany’s finances are in better shape than other major countries inside and outside of Europe. The European Union’s statistics office hasn’t released 2014 budget figures for all of Europe yet, but data released last month showed that during the third quarter of last year eurozone countries had a combined deficit of 2.6% of GDP. The U.S. ran a deficit of $488 billion in the 12 months ending in December, which is equal to around 2.8% of its GDP.
How are the growth rates?
MacroAdvisors has the USA coming in at 2.4% the first quarter of 2015.
German GDP expected to come in at 1.6%
Mexico is pulling a 2.6%
And Japan at 2.2%
These numbers will change as the first quarter, first revision prints. For the USA, anything above 2% is good news, it is recession season after all.
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