Commerce: U.S. GDP grows 1.2% in Q1 2017

Meanwhile, Commerce Department’s Census Bureau reported that new orders for manufactured durable goods in April decreased 0.7 percent to $231.2 billion after four consecutive monthly increases.    United States gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 1.2 percent in the first quarter of 2017, according to the “second” estimate released by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).
   GDP, which is the broadest measure of a nation’s overall economic growth, is a calculation of the value of the goods and services produced by a nation’s economy minus the value of the goods and services used up in production.
   The second estimate is based on more complete source data than was available for the “advance” estimate issued last month, which predicted GDP growth of 0.7 percent in the first quarter of 2017.
   “With this second estimate for the first quarter, the general picture of economic growth remains the same; increases in nonresidential fixed investment and in personal consumption expenditures were larger and the decrease in state and local government spending was smaller than previously estimated,” BEA said. “These revisions were partly offset by a larger decrease in private inventory investment.”
   Last year, U.S. GDP grew at a revised 2.1 percent rate in the fourth quarter, 3.5 percent in the third quarter, 1.4 percent in the second quarter, and 0.8 percent in the first quarter.
   In other news, the Commerce’s Census Bureau reported that new orders for manufactured durable goods in April decreased $1.6 billion, or 0.7 percent, to $231.2 billion. The decrease came after four consecutive monthly increases.