The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 3.2 percent during the first quarter of 2019, according to The Washington Post.
"The economy is not slowing nearly as much as people think," says Neil Dutta, head of economics at RenMac Research. "A 3.2 percent pace cannot be sustained, but the Federal Reserve and markets have probably cut their growth estimates too far for this year."
Many economists initially predicted weak growth at the beginning of 2019 as the partial government shutdown and extremely cold weather kept many businesses and consumers from making big purchases, but forecasters raised estimates to 2.3 percent as they became more optimistic. Growth came in almost a full percentage point higher than expected—the best start to the year since 2015.
More than half of first-quarter growth was driven by a surge in inventories and U.S. exports to other countries. State and local government spending also boosted growth by the largest amount in three years.
