WASHINGTON, May 28 (Reuters) – U.S. economic growth was not a strong as initially thought in the first quarter, and momentum is set to \u200cslow this quarter, with the war with Iran stoking inflation and squeezing \u200chouseholds finances.<\/p>\n
Gross domestic product increased at a 1.6% annualized rate last quarter, the Commerce Department’s Bureau \u200bof Economic Analysis said in its second estimate of first-quarter GDP on Thursday. Growth was previously reported to have advanced at a 2.0% pace. Economists polled by Reuters had expected that GDP growth would be unrevised at a 2.0% rate.<\/p>\n
The economy grew \u200cat a 0.5% pace in \u2060the fourth quarter. The downgrade to the first-quarter GDP estimate reflected downward revisions to inventory investment and consumer spending.<\/p>\n
Overall economic activity \u2060is mostly being driven by artificial intelligence-related spending.<\/p>\n
Growth in consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the economy, was revised down to a 1.4% rate from \u200bthe previously \u200breported 1.6% pace. Hefty tax refunds provided \u200bsome cushion to households from \u200csoaring gasoline prices.<\/p>\n
Business spending on equipment increased at an unrevised 17.2% growth pace. Final sales to private domestic purchasers, which exclude government, trade and inventories, rose at a 2.4% pace. That as a slight downgrade from the previously estimated 2.5% growth rate.<\/p>\n
Profits from current production rose at a $40.4 billion rate in the first quarter, \u200ca sharp slowdown from the $246.9 billion growth pace \u200bin the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
When measured from the income \u200bside, the economy grew at \u200ba 0.9% rate in the January-March quarter. Gross domestic income \u200cincreased at a 1.6% pace in the \u200bfourth quarter.<\/p>\n
The average \u200bof GDP and GDI, also referred to as gross domestic output and considered a better measure of economic activity, grew at a 1.3% rate. Gross \u200bdomestic output grew at \u200ca 1.1% rate in the October-December quarter.<\/p>\n
Economists expect the conflict in the \u200bMiddle East to weigh on economic growth from the second quarter.<\/p>\n
(Reporting \u200bby Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON, May 28 (Reuters) – U.S. economic growth was not a strong as initially thought in the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[37247,28,16306,2447,101,22389,293153],"class_list":["post-671895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-bureau-of-economic-analysis","tag-business","tag-consumer-spending","tag-economic-growth","tag-economy","tag-gross-domestic-product","tag-growth-pace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}