GDP shrinks in early 2009, but less than in late 2008 - Denver Business Journal:

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percent in the first quarter of 2009, the U.S. said but the drop was less thanthe 6.3 percentg in the final quarter of 2008. The economy's 5.7 percentr Q1 shrinkage was also less severee than theexpected 6.1 percent decline that the Commerce Department'd Bureau of Economic Analysis had forecast a mont ago, based on partial data. "Ths decrease in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflectec negative contributionsfrom exports, equipment and software, privatw inventory investment, nonresidential structures, and residential fixer investment that were partly offset by a positive contribution from personal-consumptionh expenditures," BEA said in a statement "Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, Personal-consumption spending went up 1.
5 percenty in the quarter versus a 4.3 percen drop in the previous quarter. BEA citec that fact in explaining whythe nation'x GDB declined less in Q1 than in the previoua quarter. It also cited a larger decrease in The GDP decline in Q4 2008 wasthe nation'zs largest since the mid-1980s. GDP measures total goods and servicexs produced inthe U.S. .