The government’s advance estimate of GDP for the first quarter was worse than expected—quite a bit worse. The consensus outlook called for a 4.7% drop, according to Briefing.com, but the government says the decline was -6.1%.
The good news is that GDP reports are old news, and so today’s dire numbers have already been digested in various reports in past weeks and months. But there’s always the future, and it’s debatable how much has changed in April, or is set to change in May.
Meanwhile, it’s clear that the U.S. economy’s performance for January through March was quite grim. The 6.1% drop in real annualized GDP for Q1 was just below the 6.3% fall for 2008 Q4. Both numbers are among the steepest quarterly declines in 50 years. The fact that the two came back to back only makes matters worse. The question is what’s in store for Q2?