US second-quarter growth trimmed to 1.1 per cent
WASHINGTON: US economic growth was a bit more sluggish than initially thought in the second quarter as businesses aggressively ran down stocks of unsold goods, offsetting a spurt in consumer spending.
Gross domestic product (GDP) expanded at a 1.1 per cent annual rate, the Commerce Department said on Friday in its second estimate of GDP. That was slightly down from the 1.2 per cent rate reported last month.
The revision also reflected more imports than previously estimated as well as weak spending by state and local governments. The economy grew at a 0.8 per cent pace in the first quarter. It grew 1.0 per cent in the first half of 2016.
The revision to second-quarter GDP growth was in line with economists’ expectations.
The economy has struggled to regain momentum since output started slowing in the last six months of 2015, which puts it in danger of stalling.
While data so far for the third quarter has been mixed, a strong labour market should continue to support consumer spending and underpin growth in the coming quarters.
Output will also likely get a boost as businesses restock warehouses after liquidating inventories in the second quarter.
The government also reported that after-tax corporate profits fell at a 2.4 per cent rate last quarter after increasing at an 8.1 per cent pace in the first quarter. Weak profits could limit an anticipated rebound in business spending.
With profits declining, an alternative measure of growth, gross domestic income, or GDI, in- creased at only a 0.2 per cent rate in the second quarter, the weakest since the first quarter of 2013. GDI measures the economy’s performance from the income side. It increased at a 0.8 per cent pace in the first quarter.
Business inventories fell $12.4 billion in the second quarter, the first drop since the third quarter of 2011, instead of the $8.1 billion reported last month.
As a result inventories sliced off 1.26 percentage points from GDP growth, the largest drag in more than two years, and up from the 1.16 percentage points subtraction in last month’s estimate.
It was the fifth straight quarter that inventories weighed on output. Economists say some of the inventory drawdown could partially be attributed to robust consumption.
Consumer spending, which makes up more than two-thirds of US economic activity, was revised up to show it increased at a 4.4 per cent rate — the fastest since the fourth quarter of 2014. Con- sumer spending, which was previously reported to have advanced at a 4.2 per cent rate, accounted for the bulk of the rise in output last quarter.
With consumption accelerating, imports were revised to show them growing at a 0.3 per cent rate instead of declining at a 0.4 per cent rate. There was also a modest downward revision to export growth. As a result, trade contributed one-tenth of a percentage point to GDP growth in the second quarter instead of 0.23 percentage point as reported last month.
Business spending on equipment fell at a 3.7 per cent rate and not the 3.5 per cent pace reported last month. Business spending on equipment contracted for a third consecutive quarter, the longest stretch since the 2007-2009 recession, though the pace of decline slowed.
Business spending has been hurt by cheap oil, which has squeezed profits in the energy sector, forcing companies to cut capital spending budgets..