Data released Friday shows the U.S. economy slowed a bit more than expected in the fourth quarter after expanding at the fastest pace in eleven years during the fall.
Gross domestic product — the value of all goods and services produced by the U.S. — grew at a 2.6% annual clip in the fourth quarter, the government said Friday. That’s below the 5.0% pace recorded in the July-September period.
Economists forecast GDP would grow by a seasonally-adjusted 3.2% in the October-to-December period.
For all of 2014, the U.S. economy grew at a 2.4% rate, slightly faster than the 2.2% gain in the prior year.
Consumer spending was a major positive in the fourth quarter, expanding 4.3%, the fastest pace since before the financial crisis.
But growth was pulled down by weaker business spending, a drop in federal government spending and net exports.
Economists say the pattern of strong U.S. consumer spending and weak business spending should persist in the first quarter as a result of the sharp drop in oil prices.
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