The US economy grew at a sluggish 1.5 per cent pace from April through June. But consumer spending stayed strong.
The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that growth in gross domestic product – the nation’s output of a goods and services – decelerated from a 2.1 per cent pace from January through March. The second-quarter growth number was unchanged from the department’s first estimate.
Still, consumer spending – which accounts for about 70 per cent of US economic activity – increased at a healthy 3.4 per cent annual clip, up from 0.5 per cent in the January-March period.
The reason for the lackluster growth number was imports. They are subtracted from growth because GDP is only supposed to count domestic US production. Imports rose at a 12.5 per cent annual pace from April through June, partly due to a surge in shipments of computer chips and other products that support artificial intelligence investment, and sliced 1.64 percentage points off second-quarter growth.
But business
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