The drumbeat of recession grew louder after the U.S. economy shrank for a second straight quarter, as decades-high inflation undercut consumer spending and Federal Reserve interest rate hikes stymied businesses and housing.
Gross domestic product fell at a 0.9% annualized rate after a 1.6% decline in the first three months of the year, the Commerce Department’s preliminary estimate showed Thursday. Personal consumption, the biggest part of the economy, rose at a 1% pace, a deceleration from the prior period.
The median projection in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 0.4% advance in GDP and a 1.2% rise in consumer spending.
