Housing slump drags U.S. growth downward
Published April 28th, 2007
Economic growth in the United States slowed to a near-crawl of 1.3 per cent at an annualized pace in the first three months of 2007, the worst performance in four years, the commerce department says.
The main culprit was the housing slump.
The reading on gross domestic product released yesterday was even weaker than the 2.5 per cent growth rate logged in the final three months of last year.
The new figures underscored how much momentum the economy has been losing as it copes with the strain of the troubled housing market, which has made some businesses more cautious in their spending.
The first-quarter figure was the weakest since a 1.2 per cent pace registered in the opening quarter of 2003. Gross domestic product measures the value of all goods and services produced within a country and is considered the best barometer of the economy’s fitness.
Economists were on average expecting a growth rate of 1.8 per cent.
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