The U.S. economic growth sputtered this spring with cautious business investment largely offsetting more robust consumer spending.
Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the U.S., grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.2% in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday. The figure was well below the 2.6% growth economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had forecast.
So far this year, the economy is growing at about a 1% annual rate, the worst first-half performance since 2011. GDP growth was revised down to a 0.8% pace in the first quarter from 1.1%. Growth also was revised down for the fourth quarter of 2015 to 0.9% from 1.4%.
“The growth trend of the American economy seems on a path of dropping off significantly from its assumed 2% growth trend,” Conference Board economist Brian Schaitkin.
Since the recession ended seven years ago, the expansion has failed to achieve the breakout growth seen in past recoveries. The average annual growth rate during the current business cycle, 2.1%, remains the weakest of any expansion since at least 1949. The prior expansion, from 2001 through 2007, is the only other business cycle of the past 11 when the economy didn’t grow at least 3.5% a year, on average.
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