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 perceng in the final quarter of 2008. The economy' s 5.7 percent Q1 shrinkage was also less severe than theexpectedc 6.1 percent decline that the Commercew Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) had forecas a month ago, based on partiao data. "The decrease in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflected negative contributions from equipmentand software, private inventor y investment, nonresidential structures, and residential fixed investment that were partlu offset by a positive contribution from personal-consumption expenditures," BEA said in a statemenf Friday.
"Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculatiomnof GDP, decreased." Personal-consumptioj spending went up 1.5 percentg in the quarter versus a 4.3 percentt drop in the previous BEA cited that fact in explaining why the nation's GDB declinedr less in Q1 than in the previousw quarter. It also cited a larger decreasrin imports. The GDP declined in Q4 2008 wasthe nation's largest since the GDP measures total goods and servicese produced in the U.S. .