US economic growth for last quarter expanded slightly to 1.4% annual rate

The American economy expanded at a 1.4 per cent annual pace from January through March, the slowest quarterly growth since spring 2022, the government said Thursday in a slight upgrade from its previous estimate. Consumer spending grew just 1.5 per cent, down from an initial estimate of 2 per cent in a sign that high interest rates may be taking a toll on the economy.

The Commerce Department had previously estimated that the gross domestic product the economy's total output of goods and services advanced at a 1.3 per cent rate last quarter.

The first quarter's GDP growth marked a sharp pullback from a strong 3.4 per cent pace during the final three months of 2023. Still, Thursday's report showed that the January-March slowdown was caused mainly by two factors a surge in imports and a drop in business inventories that can bounce around from quarter to quarter and don't necessarily reflect the underlying health of the economy.

Imports shaved 0.82 percentage point off first-quarter