There was a lot of excitement over the economy's growth prospects in the first quarter of this year, as several figures had come back looking pretty positive. But the figure released by the Commerce Department this morning was a real stinker: GDP grew at just 0.1 percent in the first quarter. That's the slowest growth we've seen since the end of 2012.
The primary reason for the early optimism had been consumer spending, which was up 3 percent in the first quarter. But nearly everything else dropped. Business investment, construction spending, and exports all came in lower, as did government spending.
If there's any reason for optimism, it's that this is just the preliminary figure, and these are almost always revised in future months. Commerce will revisit first quarter growth at the end of this month; we'll see if things look any brighter then.
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