{"id":640384,"date":"2026-05-01T08:31:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T08:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/640384\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T08:31:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T08:31:18","slug":"u-s-economy-grew-2-from-january-to-march-recovering-from-federal-shutdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/640384\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. economy grew 2% from January to March, recovering from federal shutdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Amazon employees load packages on carts at a delivery station in South Gate, Calif.Richard Vogel\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

The U.S. economy accelerated at the start of 2026, expanding at a modest 2-per-cent pace from January through March after recovering from last fall\u2019s 43-day federal government shutdown. But the outlook is clouded by the Iran war.<\/p>\n

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that gross domestic product \u2013 the nation\u2019s output of goods and services \u2013 rebounded from a lacklustre 0.5-per-cent expansion the last three months of 2025. The federal government\u2019s spending and investment grew at a 9.3-per-cent annual rate in the first quarter, adding more than half a percentage point to growth after lopping off 1.16 percentage points in fourth-quarter 2025.<\/p>\n

Growth in consumer spending, which accounts for 70 per cent of U.S. economic activity, slowed to 1.6 per cent in the first quarter from 1.9 per cent at the end of 2025. But business investment, likely driven by investments in artificial intelligence, rose at an 8.7-per-cent pace.<\/p>\n

Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz through which a fifth of the world\u2019s oil and liquefied natural gas passes. That has driven energy prices higher, fuelling inflation and hurting consumers. The Federal Reserve, announcing Wednesday that it was keeping its benchmark interest unchanged, cited \u201ca high level of uncertainty\u2033 arising from the conflict.<\/p>\n

Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, did not even bother to forecast first-quarter GDP growth. \u201cThe truth is that we do not have any defensible basis for trying to project how these indicators will print,\u201d Weinberg wrote in a commentary Monday. President Donald \u201cTrump\u2019s war with Iran has led to a total blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. We do not know how to model the impact of that event, as we have never seen anything quite like it.\u2033<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s report was the first of three Commerce Department estimates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Amazon employees load packages on carts at a delivery station in South Gate,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,45,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-640384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}