The real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 1.6 percent in the first quarter of 2024, according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter of 2023, real GDP increased 3.4 percent.
The increase in real GDP primarily reflects increases in consumer spending, residential fixed investment, nonresidential fixed investment, and state and local government spending that were partly offset by a decrease in private inventory investment.
Consumer spending reflected:
- increase in services spending
- health care
- financial services
- insurance
- decrease in goods spending
- motor vehicles
- parts
- gasoline
- other energy goods