The U.S. economy slowed dramatically at the outset of 2024, though it continued to grow at a solid pace.
The finding, released in a Commerce Department report this week, renewed a question that has lingered over the economy: Should Americans be worried about where it’s headed?
Economists who spoke to ABC News downplayed any alarm raised by the fresh data, pointing to resilient economic activity driven by the steadiness of U.S. consumers. The country remains far from the onset of a recession, they said.
However, some experts pointed to the report as a sign of the possible emergence of twin threats: a gradual economic cooldown alongside stubborn inflation. That trend could force the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates high even as the economy falters.
“GDP decelerated pretty significantly,” Stephan Weiler, a professor of economics at Colorado State University and a former Fed research officer, told ABC News, but he acknowledged the limitations of the new finding.
“One should be careful about ever using one quarter’s data to get panicked,” Weiler added.
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Gross domestic product, a measure of all the goods and services produced in the economy, recorded 1.6% annual growth over the first three months of the year, the Commerce Department said this week.
That figure marked a steep slowdown from a 3.4% annual rate measured over the final quarter of last year. The economy cooled off more than…
